01/17/2004: "Roadside Judge (A dream)"

Here is a little dream I had last night....

I was driving along in my open-top Bronco, with my dog Bear sitting on the floor behind the front seats. It started to rain, a really hard, cold rain, almost hail. Bear was unimpressed with this, and crawled back between the rear passenger seats to shelter (this model Bronco has bucket rear-seats instead of the regular bench seats).

I was driving through town, and then up onto a long freeway access ramp. Very long, and I accelerated fast to try and beat the rain. A flash of light caught my eye, and looking back, I saw a cop motioning me to pull over. I knew I had been speeding a little, but didn't think I had been going that fast. I was ready to try and talk my way out of it, but without a word, the judge motioned me down a side-road. I drove of down this road, leaving the cop behind, and shortly came to a small parking lot, where a uniformed security guard motioned me to pull over. I parked my car, and jumped out in the rain.


The security guard started reading from a piece of paper: "In order to alleviate the overloading of the court systems, the county has implemented a roadside judge system for instant prosecution of offenders. The court session will commence in exactly five minutes."
We both stood there waiting in the rain, the security guard looking expectantly down the road, with me getting cold, wet, and more and more impatient. After a few minutes, with no sign of any other people, he cleared his throat and started reading again.

"All rise for Judge Jones". I looked around quizically, as it was obvious that there was no one else here. He glanced back up at me. "Well, you have to kind of imagine the court room. Here, look at this drawing, it may help", and he passed me over a hand-drawn sketch, indicating where abouts would be the judge, the jury, the clerks, and so on.

"But there's no judge." I replied.

"Oh, it doesn't matter" He continued. "We don't actually need one. Thats just a formality." I started to prepare my arguments to this ridiculous event, but then I decided that the less I said, the quicker it would be over, and the faster I could get our of the rain.