Dressed for Justice

I had my day in court today. Actually, it was only about a minute. If your time before the judge in traffic court takes longer than that, it's trouble. About six weeks ago, as mentioned briefly here, a suburban cop pulled me over and wrote me a ticket for having a noisy exhaust. The exhaust had been making more noise than usual for a while before that, but inside the car it was a little harder to appreciate its true noisiness. It was also a function of place. In the city of Chicago, I probably wouldn't have gotten a ticket for mere noise.

I had the car fixed a while ago, and took evidence of that to court. The "prosecuting attorney" looked at the paper, told the judge about it, and the judge said case dismissed. So it was a no-cost visit to traffic court this morning, unless you count the egg & sausage biscuit I had for breakfast, but that wasn't served in court.

I saw about a dozen cases adjudicated before mine. Speeding, minor accidents for which the other parties did not show up, no proof of insurance, no drivers license; just another day in one of the utilitarian if not spartan courtrooms in Cook County's Rolling Meadows courthouse facility. The structure dates from the late 1970s or early '80s I think, and it was obvious that at one time people entered through banks of doors without regard to an inspection of their persons. Now all the doors but one set are permanently shut, and access is through a set of metal detectors that look improvised in place. One for men, one for women.

One case was mildly interesting. To watch, that is. I'm glad I wasn't the poor bastard who had to explain to the judge why his kid wasn't exactly in his car seat. Well, he was, sort of, but the seat wasn't quite, you know, anchored to anything. He got a fairly stiff fine.

Aside from a handful attorneys who came and went, I was one of only two men in the room who wore a tie. The other was a young fellow who had dyed his hair bright gold and used a lot of mousse or Dippity-Doo or something to shape a his hair, at least on top, into little points. He wore two gold earrings, baggy jeans, a leather jacket and a bright blue tie. His case hadn't come up before I left.