Chicago, Chicago ...

Mobile Etiquette Lessons, or How Kaffyr Got Schooled
      So I'd just finished dropping off groceries at the house, pulling out of the parking lot - where we don't have a designated spot - to find a space on the street. My new Blackberry is lying on the seat next to me. It rings.
     Now understand, I tell friend, colleague and stranger alike that speaking on a mobile while ... uh ... mobile is stupid.
     But here it was, ringing. And all I could think of was that BB had just remembered something he needed. So I picked it up. While I was looking for a parking spot.
     Well, it wasn't BB. It was a contact I'd tried to get for a slightly unimportant story. She was calling too late to help, so, as I tried to maneuver very slowly up my street toward a parking spot, I tried to end the conversation by telling her I'd contact her later.
     A Chicago cop car drove past me and my internal alarm went *whingggggg.*  "I have to hang up, I'm about to be ticketed for talking on the phone."
     I was.
     The very nice officer handed me a blue ticket and explained that it wasn't a traffic ticket. Go to court, he said, and there wouldn't even be a fine.
     Today was my court date. The el was slow, and I got started late, as usual, and then I got off at the wrong stop and walked in the wrong direction for two blocks. I ended up being half an hour late. 
     It was no problem. A nice administrative aide ran into me as I walked into the little windowless court-ette (too small and cavelike to be a court room), smiled and took my ticket, then beckoned me into a side room.
     Had I been talking on my cellphone?
     Yes.
     No problem, she said. It's just a fine of $100, plus $40 in court costs.
     My usual response to shock (which I hate, but which I can't seem to control even after 53 years on this earth), set in. Tears - no sobs, just silent saline in rivulets down my cheeks. 
     I guess the officer was mistaken, I said.
     Yup.
     My own fault,  I allowed. My own fault.
     So I paid.
     I went back into the court-ette, sat quietly and waited until the Administrative Hearing Officer heard my case and gave me the bill to pay. Then he asked me how I was caught. "How are they doing it now? Did they get you for anything else? No? Just the phone?"
     Yup.
     I went out to the cashier. The cashier was a very pleasant lady. We chatted as she took my money; cops say things like that, like 'There won't be a fine,' she said. "So that they can get away from folks."
     Ah.
     I walked back to the el, came home, and ate a bowl filled with three flavors of ice cream and one flavor of sherbet.
     Here endeth the lesson.

Chicago, Chicago ...

Mobile Etiquette Lessons, or How Kaffyr Got Schooled
      So I'd just finished dropping off groceries at the house, pulling out of the parking lot - where we don't have a designated spot - to find a space on the street. My new Blackberry is lying on the seat next to me. It rings.
     Now understand, I tell friend, colleague and stranger alike that speaking on a mobile while ... uh ... mobile is stupid.
     But here it was, ringing. And all I could think of was that BB had just remembered something he needed. So I picked it up. While I was looking for a parking spot.
     Well, it wasn't BB. It was a contact I'd tried to get for a slightly unimportant story. She was calling too late to help, so, as I tried to maneuver very slowly up my street toward a parking spot, I tried to end the conversation by telling her I'd contact her later.
     A Chicago cop car drove past me and my internal alarm went *whingggggg.*  "I have to hang up, I'm about to be ticketed for talking on the phone."
     I was.
     The very nice officer handed me a blue ticket and explained that it wasn't a traffic ticket. Go to court, he said, and there wouldn't even be a fine.
     Today was my court date. The el was slow, and I got started late, as usual, and then I got off at the wrong stop and walked in the wrong direction for two blocks. I ended up being half an hour late. 
     It was no problem. A nice administrative aide ran into me as I walked into the little windowless court-ette (too small and cavelike to be a court room), smiled and took my ticket, then beckoned me into a side room.
     Had I been talking on my cellphone?
     Yes.
     No problem, she said. It's just a fine of $100, plus $40 in court costs.
     My usual response to shock (which I hate, but which I can't seem to control even after 53 years on this earth), set in. Tears - no sobs, just silent saline in rivulets down my cheeks. 
     I guess the officer was mistaken, I said.
     Yup.
     My own fault,  I allowed. My own fault.
     So I paid.
     I went back into the court-ette, sat quietly and waited until the Administrative Hearing Officer heard my case and gave me the bill to pay. Then he asked me how I was caught. "How are they doing it now? Did they get you for anything else? No? Just the phone?"
     Yup.
     I went out to the cashier. The cashier was a very pleasant lady. We chatted as she took my money; cops say things like that, like 'There won't be a fine,' she said. "So that they can get away from folks."
     Ah.
     I walked back to the el, came home, and ate a bowl filled with three flavors of ice cream and one flavor of sherbet.
     Here endeth the lesson.