Ptitchitza u niskom letu

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it

After my four times socialising with the police in detention cells and two or three days in a solitary cell at a psychiatric hospital, I wanted to prove to myself that -- provided I was indeed guilty -- I can stand solitary even longer.

Now that I have for the first time registered my address through normal channels (for UN personnel in NL we're not obliged to do that, but to register our address through our Visa & Entitlement Unit who then contacts the Protocol of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs), I have started receiving speeding tickets from years back. For some reason, my old Mercedes seams to have slipped through the cracks of bureaucracy and all my speeding tickets have been sent to (I guess) some of the no-longer valid addresses - I never received any.

Now, in three weeks, I received one speeding ticket for 310 euros, one for 410 euros and one for 640, and that's only the beginning, I feel. The amounts are increased because of the interest and because they were not paid in time (no matter that I always had my address registered as I should have). I might go to jail for 12 days, and still pay the tickets. I have to seek legal representation -- this is not right. But, the whole affair disgusts me. Reminds me of just how much money more that I should have have I paid some years ago before I understood that every road-tax payment form was different in some detail that noone ever told me.

It's not easy, my switch to normal Dutch living. I've been priviledged too long.