WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
My son is a good kid - he works hard, he is always there for a friend in need. He practices empathy and tolerance toward people. He just turned 21 - an adult now. He struggles with things, just as we all do. When my kid screws up, there is a hole the shape of him in the wall. :-/
So last Saturday (9/21) my son's truck was impounded. Why, you ask? Well, 2 years ago he got a DUI. His license was suspended for a year. He was able to get a restricted license in March, on condition of having a breathalyzer on for 5 months. The breathalyzer came off in August. The breathalyzer company gives you a certificate, but they also transmit the record of completion to DMV electronically. Did my son go to DMV and get a regular license right away? Nope!
We paid the registration in July. Did my son put the tags on the truck? Nope!
So he got pulled over for no tags on his way to work. The cop checks his license, which still says it is restricted and that he must drive a vehicle with a breathalyzer, which the truck no longer has.
So the cop impounded the truck, wrote my son a fix-it ticket for the registration, a violation for having a restricted license and no breathalyzer, aaaaaand.............AN INFRACTION FOR THE 1/4 OUNCE OF WEED SITTING OUT IN PLAIN VIEW IN THE TRUCK!!!!!!!! Awesome! I asked him, "have you not seen enough Cheech & Chong movies???"
So on Monday, he got his license taken care of, and we got the truck out of hock - $445 bucks! Yes, he is absolutely going to be paying us back. On Thursday, he went and got the replacement tags for the truck - can't find the tags that came back in the summer. So that's good. He's hostile, agile and mobile, as my brother the Master Sergeant would say.
Now we are just waiting for a notice from the court regarding the weed infraction - we don't know yet if this will be a violation of his probation for the DUI. The cop asked him if he had a prescription, but he doesn't (yet - he's going to get one next week).
I'm very pro-legalization, and not just because my kid tends to get into trouble with weed. When he was a junior, he and his friend got themselves some weed one night. They took it to a city park (first mistake), and they were just sitting in the car smoking up, when all of a sudden a cop walks up a slope from the park to the parking lot, and shines a light into the windshield - and there's my son, with the weed in one hand and a pipe in the other! The cops were searching the park for a teenager who had been reported missing. They found him a little later - with a bag of weed on him! They were falling out of the trees that night!
When we were picking him up from the cops that night, one cop had the kids across the parking lot, while the other was talking to us. They were about the same age my husband and I are, and he was saying, "those are some nice buds. Nice looking pipe, too", in a tone of voice that said "too bad he isn't getting those back" and "we all did this stuff when we were young". We were all kind of laughing, as adults do when they don't want their kid to know that they can find something humorous in the thing they just got in trouble for. The DA ended up not charging him, and he didn't get into any more trouble as a juvenile. Everything else that has happened was after he turned 18.
I'm all for legalization; I vote in favor every time it's on the ballot. I'm also pro-responsibility. I don't care if somebody wants to toke up to relax - it's way less dangerous than alcohol, no question. But jeez, don't carry it with you when you are on probation! Stay the fuck home and macrame' your ass into the couch (thanks Robin Williams - one of the funniest lines ever!).
Oh and the tow company - when I called on Monday, they said the vehicle was on a 30-day hold. I was like "watch me". We got it out Monday, and on Tuesday we get a lien notice in the mail from the tow company! I have had a vehicle impounded about 10 years ago - I let a registration slide too long (I was getting my ass kicked at work at the time, long story, a previous FP which I'm grateful not to have now blah blah blah). I don't recall that happening before, and I have never heard of this. I tend to think it is just hard times - they will do anything to bring in revenue. Or maybe it's some kind of DEA thing - a vehicle gets impounded in relation to a DUI, they put it up for auction automatically?? Anyway, we called, and they said we don't need to worry about it because we cleared the license, yadda yadda. So one less FP than there could have been.
So there's my sordid tale - waiting for the other shoe to drop on my kid's latest fiasco. I looked up the code he was charged under for the weed. It's an infraction, $100 fine, no criminal - I'm hoping the court overlooks this in relation to his probation. The cop didn't field test him for sobriety; he didn't get arrested for DUI which would absolutely be a violation of his probation. I'm sick - I don't want my kid to do jail time.
How are you all this evening? What FP's do we have out there tonight??
Blessings and peace to all of you!
~Sue