My day could have sucked so much more

It's a lovely crowd you see at the courthouse first thing in the morning.

But what can I say - I was part of that crowd.

I confess: I was there to pay a traffic ticket. Not one of my proudest moments. But you suck it up and do what you have to do, huh?

I tried, in vain, to avoid this trip. I read the ticket (OK, two tickets - but it could have been three) carefully, trying to figure out if I could just go in. Because the computer was not working, the tickets were hand-written (!) and hard to decipher. All I could read for certain was that 8.30 a.m. court date.

I even went online to try to pay. It appeared to be working, then timed out. When I went back, the option for online payment had disappeared. So I figured I had to go appear in traffic court.

So I did it. The ATM ran out of cash, so I was worried that I would run into problems paying. I was panicky - I could only find a 20-minute parking space, and the last thing I wanted was another ticket - and nervous (this was so embarrassing). And I felt so out of place in line - in ordinary jeans, I was dressed nicer than almost anyone there - I say almost because I thought I saw two prosecutors talking together, then realized the one woman was, like me, guilty of traffic violations (maybe just one in her case). "Appearing in court" actually seems to mean standing in line, chatting with the prosecutor, then being directed to a cashier.

So I went in to pay, with much chagrin (as if the cashiers really care), and to my surprise and delight, it said my online payment had gone through. I don't have to go to driving school. I could have been spared my humiliating trip downtown. And the whole thing took only 20 minutes, thus no ticket on my car. And, to top things off, when I got home, there was a message that my cabinet doors were ready at the glass place.

So, all in all, it could have been so much worse. Let's just hope it's a scene I don't have to revisit for a long, long time.