I am a hardened criminal.

Last night I picked up Miranda, and we headed to the airport to fetch Josh and Shan from their weekend trip to exotic Regina. We were most of the way through downtown when we were pulled over by a cop. I immediately checked to see if my lights were on – they were – then ran through the other possibilities for my being harassed by The Man. I wasn’t speeding, I didn’t go through a red or even yellow light, I didn’t cut anyone off, and I didn’t do that thing where you go around a corner on two wheels. I was confused but open-minded; perhaps there was a mistake. Maybe they were looking for a REAL criminal who happened to drive a white Mazda 3 and thought perhaps I was that criminal. Miranda fished my registration out of the glove box, I rolled down my window, and said hello to The Man (who was actually a young woman).

“Hello there, I pulled you over because you made a right hand turn from Richards onto Helmcken, and that is illegal between 11pm and 6am.”

It was 11:03pm.

Are you fucking shitting me.

She went on to tell me that I had tinted front windows and that was also illegal, and could I please hand over my license and registration.

WHAT THE FUCK!

Okay, the tinted windows – that is 100% Ed’s fault, as he actually paid money to have them slathered with illegality. But the turn? Three minutes into a really bizarre time restriction? On a Sunday night? On GRANVILLE, three days before Halloween? Seriously, isn’t there a bar fight or stabbing she should be breaking up instead of pulling me over? Grrrrr.

She came back and handed me my stuff along with a nice $109 ticket. The ticket wasn’t for the turn, but for the windows. We get a lovely $25 discount if we pay the ticket within 30 days, but that’s still a $84 fine for something Ed insisted we pay for the privilege of having installed. Guess how awesome this is? That’s right; it totally isn’t at all.

I would so make Ed pay this, but all our money is linked and I’m the one who’ll actually have to go through the process of paying it anyway, so why bother.

I looked over the ticket while we were waiting for the flight to come in. To add insult to injury, the cop thinks I am very old (she didn’t check off the Young Person box), and she SPELLED VANCOUVER WRONG. I should get a 100% discount just for that alone – any respect for her authority I may have had went flying out my tinted windows when I saw that. Spelling mistakes infuriate me. Spelling mistakes made by people with guns still infuriate me, but there’s less I can do about it. How do you spell the name of the city you live in (and serve and protect and have plastered all over your CAR) wrong? What the hell, dude. I am more disgusted over that than I am the ticket itself. Illiterate bastards.

The winner of the Haiku contest will be posted this afternoon, I promise!