From good to bad in one phone call

Have you ever had one of those days that starts out just fine only for it to change into an awful day in the blink of an eye? That was my day yesterday and it was all because of one phone call.

The story actually starts two weeks ago when the animal enforcement officer from Saratoga Springs caught our dog Maylee out of our yard. We use a shock collar to keep her in our yard, but I couldn't find it. I let her out in the back to go to the bathroom and I totally forgot about her until I got a knock on the door from the officer asking if I owned a rat terrier. I was very tempted to say "no" but didn't. I called her, she came home and he then proceeded to write me a ticket for "dog at large." Yes, I was guilty.

Fast forward to yesterday. I called the city thinking that I would simply need to pay a reasonable fine for my ticket and it would be done. That was not the case at all. I start talking to the court clerk and she informs me that this ticket is a class b misdemeanor which means I need to go to court in front of the judge and oh by the way your court date is July 18th. "What? Is this some kind of joke?"

At this point Owen decides he wants a glass of milk and starts screaming at me. I lock myself in the bathroom so I can hear what this lady is saying. I tell her that there is no way I can go to court for this ticket because I am having a baby in a few weeks. "Well if you can't attend court and you have a clean record then you can come in, meet with me and pay a $200 fine" she says. "$200 are you kidding me? Clean record? I don't even have a record. I don't even know what a record really is, only that it sounds bad."

So here I am trying to tune out Owen who is screaming and pounding on the door for milk and I'm hearing things like "on probation for 12 months" "on your record" "fine of up to $1700" and "up to 180 days in jail." At this point I am upset and I'm trying desperately not to cry on the phone. One part of my mind doesn't like hearing those scary sounding words and the other part is thinking "This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life. My dog was caught outside of our yard - that's it. She wasn't aggressive, she hadn't bit anyone, noone had complained, I'm not a repeat offender etc. Am I hearing this right? This must be some sort of sick joke someone is playing on an emotional pregnant woman."

After I get off the phone I start bawling and I pretty much bawled the rest of the day. I call it the trigger. All of a sudden everything that I had been worrying about lately came to the surface. How am I going to keep this dog in our yard when I am distracted with a newborn? Our backyard is partially fenced but the real problem is that I have boys going in and out of the house from all doors all day long. So it is quite easy for her to slip out for a little free time unnoticed regardless of a fence. The only option is to keep her tied up in the backyard all day and I really don't want to do that. And for some reason that animal control guy patrols all the time!

That then led to me wondering how on earth am I going to keep Owen in the yard and out of mischief with a newborn. Same problem except tying him up isn't an option, neither is a shock collar. This worry was fresh on my mind because that morning he discovered that flushing stuff down the toilet was fun and later on I caught him with his two hands wrist deep in a tub of Vaseline.

Scott agrees with me that this whole thing is completely unreasonable and ridiculous, but unlike me sees the funny side to it. He was kind enough to jokingly call me a felon and let me know when I went down to the Saratoga Springs offices that I could call him and he would come and post bail. He also told me that in a few days he would be able to look me up in the county criminal records. Ha Ha very funny. I so should have had the officer put his name on the ticket instead of mine. Had I known how ridiculous this was going to be I would have!

I guess I somewhat settled down last night, only to get worked up again this morning when I got my court summons in the mail. This afternoon I went into Saratoga Springs to meet with the court clerk. I paid my stupid $200. And now I can proudly say that I have "a record" and I am on probation for the next 12 months. And if my dog doesn't get caught they will be so nice to remove the misdemeanor after 12 months. Give me a break.