(no subject)

When I arrived in CT on Saturday night... Hey, this reminds me of a ren faire song. I'll start over.

When I got home on Saturday night, as drunk as drunk could be,
I saw a piece of mail where my own mail ought to be,
When I called Ali and said to her, would you kindly tell to me,
Who owns the mail on the counter, where my own mail should be.

The letter was from Livonia Michigan, which struck me as odd because that's where 90% of my sister's college friends are from. This made me double check that the letter was indeed for me. It was. It was an invoice from a collection agency asking for payment on a traffic ticket I got in Florida back in march. If have any familiarity at all with the Florida law enforcement system, you know this story is about to get very stupid.

Back in March, while on vacation with Ali, I was pulled over in Florida for having an expired registration. Why Florida police care about my Connecticut vehicle registration is still an issue I can't seem to wrap my brain around. The officer then told me I lived in Florida (something I haven't done since 2005) and worked at Disney (which I haven't done since 2000). They were also upset that when asked for my license, I presented them with my totally valid Connecticut card. They asked for my Florida license and when I told them I got rid of it when I moved they became very suspicious. Their imaginations began to run wild with ideas of an elaborate scheme to lure innocent young (though legally adult and allowed to make their own decisions) women from New York to run away with me to Florida, go to Disney World, and buy souvenirs. Just writing this makes me feel so evil I'm contemplating posting this with my villain icon.

I attribute this insanely retarded conspiracy to the officer watching too much CSI Miami. What they finally totally nailed me with is the expired registration sticker. If only I had known then that I had a valid sticker on my windshield.

Our story continues with me getting back to Connecticut now fully aware of the valid registration adhered to the windshield. I called the clerk and was told that if I had proof of valid registration for the date the ticket was issued I could fax it to them and everything would be fine. I did, and now we are back to the beginning and my awesome song.

My first thought was that they never got the proof that was faxed to them three times. After an afternoon of attempting to call them again to clear this up, only to get a busy signal after jumping through the requisite automated hoops, I decided to check Orange County Florida's website. Their breakdown looked like this.

• March 31 - Ticket issued.
• April 30 - Proof of valid registration received.
• May 4 - Driver's license suspended.
• May 4 - Late fee charged
• July 7 - Account sent to collection.

Clearly, in the sunshine state, stupidity knows no bounds. Why on any plane of reality would it make sense to suspend someone's license five days after they proved that they had done nothing wrong? Is this an ego thing? Were they so upset by the exposure of their folly that they decided to retaliate in a manner that shows the same lack of composure you would expect to find in a toddler roughly around nap time? How dare he say that we did something wrong, let's rip up his license! There's just one problem, since I doubt that these actions would occur without mailing out any explanation. (Even Florida can't be that dumb, right?) I think that the notice of my late fees and suspension were sent to my Florida address (which I still haven't had since 2005) and my nonexistent Florida license was the one suspended, which I just find hilarious.

I'm going to the DMV tomorrow to check my license, I'm trying to get a ride there, just in case.

Stupid things like this are the reason I left Florida in the first place, hopefully I can get this cleared up so I can go back there on vacations. Until then, I need some cheering up. What have you got for me Tenacious D?