Many years ago, I lived in the middle of nowhere upstate in New York. Montreal was by far the nearest major city. I got sick with a nasty infection. I was, in fact, one of the first people with a bacterial infection that Ciprofloxacin wouldn’t touch. It was bad. I had to drive myself to Boston for treatment, as that was where the nearest major hospital was with facilities to deal with it. I was there for about a month, and I was in and out of the hospital several times.

Imagine my surprise when, half a year later, I got a letter forwarded to me from the court where I had lived in New York. I had an unpaid parking ticket that had been turned into a mandatory appearance for non-payment. At that point, I had moved to the other side of the country and was NOT going back.

The date on the ticket was actually when I was in the ICU, and I had proof that my vehicle was in the hospital parking lot; I originally went in for outpatient, and that didn’t go well, so my car was ticketed there and impounded in the end. Obviously, I was not in New York and had never received the ticket, so I had no knowledge of it, and it could not have been my car.

I sent the documentation to the court, but the response was that it didn’t matter, as I had to show up in person to present evidence, and if I didn’t, a felony contempt warrant would be issued. I wasn’t planning to ever go back to the area, so rather than take a week from work to go fight it, I let it go. 

The only time it ever came up was when I was issued a security clearance, and the agent told me not to worry; they saw this kind of thing fairly often from small-town justices of the peace, and it had no standing.

When I was first put in jail, I searched the library cart for something to read. The TVs were controlled by certain cliques, and just about the only thing they ever played was ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network). I do not care about sports in the slightest.

Among the stacks of religious books, thirty-year-old and mainly discredited self-help books, and cheap airport paperbacks, I DID manage to find something worth reading: “Hamlet”.

I was sitting on my bunk reading it, and one cellmate saw it.

Cellmate: “What is that?”

Me: “Oh, it’s Hamlet. I know, pretty cheesy, but it’s about the only thing worth reading on the library cart.”

Cellmate: “What’s Hamlet?”

Me: “You know… Hamlet… by Shakespeare.”

Cellmate: “What’s Shakespeare?”

Me: “You’re kidding, right?”

Cellmate: *Completely blank face* “No. What is it?”

Me: “Wow, I’d at least think you’d have heard of him in high school, or through pop culture osmosis or something. He’s only the most well-known writer in the English language.”

Cellmate: “Nah, I usually only know about rap music.”

Me: “Ooookay, hang on…”

I flipped over to the “To be or not to be” soliloquy and read/acted it out for him.

Cellmate: “Wow, that’s pretty cool. I really like that ‘For in that sleep of death what dreams may come’ part the best! Has this guy… What was his name again?”

Me: “…William Shakespeare,”

Cellmate: “Yeah! Has he written any other stuff?”

I was unable to shake the feeling I was being pranked.

Me: “Yeah… He’s written a few things.”

Cellmate: “Cool. I’ll have to look him up. That ‘For in that sleep of death what dreams may come’ part would make a dope rap song!”

My dad tells me a story of when he was stationed on the East Coast before I was born. An idiot jerk he knew let his “valuable show-quality” German shepherd act however it pleased, including chasing neighborhood cats. No leash, of course.

I don’t know if, in this case, the cat owner was Dad or a friend of his; he’s told it both ways. But one of those cats was a full-grown but still small Manx cat. One day, the cat had enough and jumped on the shepherd’s back, hung on with her front paws, and beat the absolute crap out of the dog with her hind legs. With claws. This, of course, destroyed the “show-quality” part.

[Dog Owner] took [Cat Owner] to small claims court. The judge was not sympathetic, pointing out the trouble the dog had already caused and that the area had leash laws — never mind the dog starting the fracas. [Dog Owner] had to pay [Cat Owner]’s court costs.

There was also a bit of disbelief that a cat that small had beaten up a dog that size. Both animals were in the courtroom — the dog because the owner was showing off the damage done (and shockers, the dog was on a leash) and the cat for reasons Dad didn’t say, safely secured in a cat carrier.

I recently read this story about a thief. Back in the olden days, thieves were less sophisticated but still successful.

I knew of a guy who would go to home improvement stores and pick a large, inexpensive item that came in a box and put it in his cart. He would ditch that item, keeping the box, and then get busy filling that box with power tools and expensive merchandise. He even carried a roll of clear packing tape to seal it back up.

He’d just roll his cart to the checkout with the barcode facing up, and he knew which cashiers were lazy and would just scan it without checking. He could easily get over a thousand dollars of product for thirty or forty bucks.

Related:
He Was Clearly Hoping No One Could Put A Finger On The Problem

A few years ago, I was on call for jury duty for three months. We were supposed to call in every week to see if we needed to report. Toward the end of the three months, there was a notice to report.

I arrived at the courtroom, checked in, took a seat, and waited… and waited. A friend joined me. She was a music teacher, and she was worried that she would get chosen as it was right before spring concert dates for her. 

The judge came out.

Judge: “People aren’t showing up for jury duty. We’re having to send sheriff’s deputies out to find people as we can’t start until we have enough potential jurors.”

A few more people straggled in, and they finally said we could start. The defendant and the lawyers came out and stood at their tables. The defendant started peeking back over his shoulder at all the people sitting in the courtroom. About the time the judge came out, the defendant leaned over and whispered something to his lawyer. The lawyer then asked to approach the bench. Both lawyers went up and talked to the judge for a couple of minutes. Then, they went back to their tables and gathered up their stuff, and they all left. 

The judge came over to the potential jurors.

Judge: “The defendant has decided to plead guilty. You are all free to leave. It’s fairly common for defendants to see all of the people here and change their minds.”

The defendant ended up getting a plea deal out of it, my friend didn’t have to miss her concerts, and I got paid for sitting in a courtroom for a few hours!