Babble on in Babylon

As I watched all the delinquents and late-comers go directly into the courtroom and emerge 30 minutes later to pay their fines, I started to feel a little punished for actually having children NOT enrolled in the Public Daycare System.  So I approached Mr. Security Man and said “Am I being punished here?  For having my children with me?  Because everyone else gets to go in and see the judge, and I’m still sitting on this bench.”

“Oh, no, NO MA’AM, you’re not being punished.  In no way.  It’s just the judge’s policy that people with young children wait outside here in the hall ’til the courtroom clears out a little.”

“Oh.  Ok.  But what about how I was here, on time, an hour before people that are going in and coming back out, and I’m still at the back of the line?”

(Rubbing his chin with his hand.  Looking everywhere but at me.) “Uh, well ma’am, that’s just the judge’s policy.  That’s how he tells us to handle it.”

Sooo, trouble-making, rabble-rousing mommy that I am,

I meekly sat back down on the bench.

ONE HOUR LATER

After much chin rubbing and pacing in and out of the courtroom, Mr. Man tells me I can take my kids and go sit on the front row in the courtroom.  But I’m still in the back of the line, somehow. After about 15 minutes of watching my oh-so-well-behaved children sit next to me and play tic-tac-toe, the Mr. Inside-the-Courtroom Security Man says I can cut in front of everybody else and go next.  Thank you Jesus.

Well my whole reason for going to court was to try to reduce the fine, or the speed overage so the insurance wouldn’t have a hissy fit.  He reduced the speed for insurance reporting purposes but had no pity on the fine.  Shoulda let my little one wear his sandals and ripped baseball pants.  And I definitely could have appeared a little more destitute.  Ah, pride.

But what I really wanted to tell him was “Shame on you.  For discriminating against a stay at home Mom.  For saying my time is less valuable than that of everybody else here.  Shame.”

And I haven’t even got to the the really shameful part yet.

While I was sitting on the bench, I saw lots of people pass through that security gate.  People with hats on their heads, people who wanted to argue about leaving their cell phone outside, people with they underwear showing (male and female, top and bottom.)  They all passed right on through to their place in line.  Only I, and one other, were pulled from the line to wait in bench purgatory.

The other person was a lady, maybe 15 years older than me.  She also had brought someone along with her - but it wasn’t her children.  She brought a friend that had agreed to come with her, to help her, because she couldn’t hear very well.  She was not deaf, I confirmed that in my hour and a half sitting next to her.  She just wasn’t positive that she would be able to hear everything the judge said to her.

And guess where her respect for the judge’s time landed her?

Next to me.  Sitting on a bench for two hours while various and sundry complained and shuffled and cussed and moped their way into the courtroom, ahead of us.  Because I have children and her ears aren’t what they used to be.

I think it’s pretty disgraceful.

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