in contempt of court.

I have had my share of traffic violations in my short driving experience. About a month and a half ago I was on my way to work to unlock doors for Bible studies and I got in this really long line of traffic in front of a school. It was the week school started and it was about 7:45am so traffic was horrendous. There are 2 lanes that go straight and one that turns right. I needed to turn right, so I got into the far right lane and started heading up, but apparently I got into that lane too early and unfortunately for me there was a police man sitting there who kindly pulled me over to inform me of my mistake. I will argue this intersection is confusing because the turn lane is very long, but apparently there are certain points where you can only turn into shopping centers and you cannot go straight. There is old paint on the ground that use to indicate this and there use to be yellow pylons that wouldn't even allow you to go straight, but those are all gone now. Anyway, this seems to be a common mistake and since I got pulled I have watched tons of cars do the exact same thing I did. After sitting in the parking lot for 30 minutes, I was finally issued my ticket and set free. The damage was $116.50 and/or a court date to plead my case.

I knew the court date was the first week of October. Up until the night before the court date my plan was to go to the court hearing and plead my case and then I decided I was too busy so I would just pay it. I got home, sat down on the couch with all the info and the ticket said you could pay up until midnight the day before your case. My case was Thursday, October 6th, so I sat down to pay the ticket and the website said that paying the ticket online was already closed. Now this irritated me since it was 10pm....a whole 2 hours before online payment was supposed to end and this meant I would have to spend my valuable time in court the next morning and I didn't want to do that. I just happened to look at my calendar and that is when I realized that TODAY (Wednesday) was OCTOBER 6th....NOT TOMORROW! I had missed my court date! I had failed to pay my ticket and I had just totally missed my court date because I'm a moron. I wasn't busy...I wasn't dead...I was sitting at Panera that morning enjoying a cinnamon crunch bagel and coffee, while all the while my name was being called in a Snellville courtroom and I was being held in contempt of court! I might have almost had a heart attack. The document said that failure to appear in court may result in the suspension of your license and/or a warrant being issued for your arrest! YIKES! My roommates tried to focus my panicked attention on the "and/or" part of that phrase, but I was unconvinced. A WARRANT! Seriously! I work for a church and there is a warrant out for my arrest simply because I am an idiot, didn't pay attention to detail and all day long thought it was Oct. 5th. Whoops! A very big whoops!
So, the next morning I drove slowly, careful to obey all traffic laws, pulled up at the Snellville City Hall the moment it opened and 15 minutes and nearly $200 dollars later walked out, not in handcuffs and not having to hail a cab. Apparently it is expensive to be held in contempt. My blunder cost my an extra $70. The court clerk said I could get a new court date, explain to the judge what happened and maybe he would wave the extra fees. What would I say?....."Umm, judge, well, what had happened was....I wasn't here because I was eating a bagel." I hope the city of Snellville buys themselves something nice with my cash.