Franklin Township Municipal Building. Traffic Court, 3/12/09

Although it was Franklin Township, the Borough of Millstone was subleasing space to wring some tickets out of us unwary speeders, and the judge was just in from New Brunswick, where he had learned he had hopes of getting on some reality show about judges. Right on!

I had showed up early, as instructed, to talk to the prosecutor. I was #7 in line. This little DeVito like dude came out from the cops' area of the building in wraparound shades. Turns out he was the prosecutor. He took each of us in turn. Two were hispanic, and the prosecutor's Spanish was pretty good. Usually he chatted a little bit: "Where do you work? Where'd you get your degree from?"

There was none of that for me. Maybe because I was second to last in line, maybe because I'm a cold looking WASP. I came in there and he was like: "This is a 4-point offense, but I can make it a 0-point offense. The fine is about $400. OK?" I think you know the answer.

So we get into court, and the third guy called is this nerd who's pleading not guilty to a speeding ticket from last September. He's already requested all manner of paperwork on the radar gun etc., and now he wants the user's manual. The judge says "are we giving that out now?" The judge, a little annoyed, says "OK, we gotta call in the prosecutor, you go sit down."

And then he called me up. I kinda wanted to stick around and see how this guy got wry, low-level tongue lashing, but I had to get back to work. Alack.