Last night Mitch and I had a big date at traffic court. My bad, not his. Speeding in a school zone. There’s a high school not far from us, so at least I wasn’t trying to pick off toddlers.

The offense occured two months ago as I was careening back from Vitamin Cottage. Had I taken my normal trajectory, I would be $361 richer today. But for whatever reason, I chose a different route and there he was, sunglasses glinting, standing on the sidewalk, picking us off like fish in a barrel.

Not that I’m blameless. Every one of us deserved our tickets. I’m certainly more conscious, now, chastened, which is the larger social point. But at court last night, everything was handled with such frigid efficieny that the point seemed to be more one of generating revenue than maintaining the rule of law. Fine for me, I was guilty and I can afford it. But for many of my fellow civil marauders, a similar mistake can result in a cascade of financial catastrophes. One unpaid ticket leads to a bench warrant which leads to bigger fines which can’t be paid which leads to jail time, and so on.

I, for one, would have been happy to repay my debt to society teaching in an after-school program or collecting trash in the park.