5:40 P.M. Reading the book "Home" by Marilynne Robinson. Phone rings. Have brief conversation with mechanic where I am asked if "I've noticed the tires wearing unevenly?" Decide not to tell said mechanic that I'm not sure I've even noticed the car had tires. "I hadn't noticed that," I answered. Secretly wish I was Fred Flinstone so that my tires could not wear unevenly. Do rocks wear unevenly? Did he drive with rocks. I know nothing about cars, even one's from the Stone Age. Did the Flinstones originate in the Stone Age. Correction, I know nothing.
6:04 P.M. Take a right turn and am directed to pull over by a traffic cop. "I pulled you over because you can't take a right turn onto this street." Look on bewilderly as other cars turn onto the street and cruise right past said officer. "Did you see the sign?"
Answer: No
"Are you from around here?"
Answer: No
At which point I've apparently misunderstood his line of questioning because I believed we were moving towards a mutual agreement of a slapped wrist, and we both go on about our days feeling as though we've done something useful, maybe top off the day by hassling some bums and teenagers. I can see that we're going to be friends, this young gentleman and I. However, the cop, and I use the term as a pejorative here, asks for my registration and proceeds to write me a ninety dollar ticket as I watch cars take safe left turns onto the street.
"Why do they get to turn?"
"They are taking lefts. You can't turn right onto this street between 4-7 P.M."
It's hard to argue with logic like that. I consider prostrating myself before him for giving the offense of taking a right turn. In retrospect I should have offered to turn around and come back to the street after taking a proper left turn. I bet he would have been impressed.
"Are you really giving me a ticket? It's not as though I was brazenly breaking traffic laws." (I did use the word brazen here).
Officer departs my vehicle to stop traffic, so I can go on.
I sit in the car with a ninety dollar ticket wondering what just happened. I took a right turn onto a two street, with two way traffic, that has random times assigned to it and got a ticket. That seems fair. Drive away and briefly wish I had gone to law school, so I could contest the ticket.
Return home and briefly rant to my wife about the modern bureaucratic state, and its tendency to crush the struggling individual. Insensitively compare the cops on Woodmont Avenue to the Gestapo. Repent, but still hate them.
11:30 P.M.-12:15 A.M. Attempt to turn a resume into a .txt format and to properly paste it into a separate form to apply for a job. Continually paste text and move it into proper order, save it, and then watch as it adjusts itself into some random order that occasionally and inexplicably includes all caps. Ex: Below.
Andrew Bertaina
May 2009
BACHELOR WITH WRITING EMPHASIS
Note: Not what my actual resume looked like.
12:50 A.M. Go to sleep having accomplished next to nothing. On the bright side, it's slightly better than nothing.
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