Tuesday night The Mr. called as I was driving home. We chatted about the normal stuff: how was your day?, what do you want to do for dinner?, are the kids strangling each other because that is an awful lot of screaming?
 

We hung up but he immediately called back.
 

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said. “You got subpeonaed today.”
 

“Um, what?”
 

“There was a guy waiting at the house when I got home,” he said.
 

I wondered how long the guy had been there. It had been raining all day (in the last four days, Phoenix has received half of its annual rainfall amount. Seriously.) and I thought about how boring it must be for process servers.
 

“Did you pay that red light ticket you got in November,” he asked.
 

“Yeah. I remember writing and mailing the check.” The damn $225 check. Stupid red light camera. I wasn’t paying attention and by the time I saw the light changing I was going too fast to stop in time. And then I saw the flash of the camera. Crap!
 

When I got home I looked at the paperwork the server had given The Mr. It was the same stuff that had been mailed to me in the first place. Why are some things so difficult that shouldn’t be? I had scoured that paperwork for options and all I could figure out was that I had basically two options: pay the ticket and then pay for traffic school, or dispute the ticket. Well, I couldn’t dispute the ticket partly because I’m an honest citizen and I actually did run the red light, and also because if you dispute the ticket you have to send a copy of your driver’s license in and there’s no denying from the picture taken at the intersection that it’s me!
 

I figured that things had gotten crossed in the mail. That had to be the easiest answer. So I checked our bank statement online only to discover that the check hadn’t cleared. Ugh! A check I wrote and mailed in early December. Then I started to panic about a $225 check being lost in the mail and whether I should stop payment on it or if it was buried on someone’s desk.
 

I adhere to the philosphy that you can attract more flies with honey than water. And when you’re dealing with employees who are likely constantly yelled at and berated by “customers” it’s always a good idea to treat people with kindness. Which is what I did when I called my city’s municipal courts to figure out what happened.
 

Turns out I didn’t sign the check! They had sent it back to me in December (it probably looked like junk mail because I don’t remember seeing it). Great, I thought, I just have to find the check and send it in and I’m done with this. Fortunately that honey thing worked because as I was talking to A she let me know that I can take traffic school without paying the ticket. And by doing so I wouldn’t have the points on my license or have my insurance rates increased. However, my court date was set for Feb. 1 and I had to complete the course within 7 days of the court date. Fortunately, again, A let me know that I could send a fax to the judge asking for an extension. Which I did.
 

Today came the news that my court date has been extended until March 11! Which gives me plenty of time to attend a class.
 

And bonus: I can do it online! Another bonus: Internet courses that cost only $50!