After going through my first traffic stop, then enjoying a beautiful hike at my most favorite place, it was time to spend the Sunday night and part of Monday in the village of Newberry, where I was pulled over and ordered to appear before a judge, who would decide what to do with my traffic stop and the ticket that I got.
I must tell you I was scared. This was the first time, I was pulled over, handed a speeding ticket, and was sentenced to present before a county judge. All three things were happening with me for the first time, so I got really scared because of that. I was lucky to have been surrounded by my friends, who made sure that I was calm and told me to relax and not to think about it too much.
Had I not been pulled over by a cop, we would have been on our way home. Now, the circumstances were different, so we left our Airbnb in the morning and headed to the nearby motel which had a spare room for me to spend a night there. Before this day, I never stopped at Newberry. We drove through Newberry to get to Munising and witness the magnificent Pictured Rocks, and while doing that I didn’t imagine I would spend any time here, but here I was, trying to spend a night so that I can get before the judge in the morning and defend my actions for the speeding ticket with an expired license.
When my friends dropped me off and left, there was nothing to do except to take a nap. I tried doing that, but my mind had different plans. I was thinking only about tomorrow and there were countless scenarios (all bad) going on in my head, the worst of them being the judge deporting me to India, and me losing everything and everyone in the US. I can giggle about it now, but trust me, I was really scared that day.
Before I knew it, the evening was upon us and wanted to grab a bite. The place of Newberry was so small and kind of deserted that I could find only one spot to eat. It was a dingy bar at the corner of the street and roughly 15 minutes walk from the motel. I felt dreaded walking to the bar in the dark and thought I was going to get mugged, but there was no other way to feed myself. Fortunately, nothing happened and we got back to the motel safely.
Now, I knew I had to spend a night somehow, which was a hard thing to do. I was glad that the TV of the motel was on and it had TruTV on it. They were playing my then-favorite TV show “Impractical Jokers“, which was just I needed to distract myself from everything that was going on. I was so happy that IJ was on that I forgot about all my worries and slept off quite nicely after watching a couple episodes. The night turned out to be comfortable.
The next morning, I woke up with a dreaded fear as the time of my court appearance was getting closer. I got up at around 7AM to call around the attorneys’ offices to see if anyone can represent me. The downside of it was that it was Monday and I was trying to get hold of the attorney at 7.30 in the morning. Obviously, after trying for an hour, I gave up on the idea as I was fed up with getting negative responses from the attorneys’ offices. I had a 10AM appearance at the court, so I got all ready at 9AM as it was a 20-minute walk to the district court.
The walk felt longer than it was, maybe due to the fact that I was nervous. When my Google Maps showed that I was just around the corner, my heartbeat started beating faster and I could foresee what might happen in the next few minutes and hours.
It took me a couple minutes to figure out the entrance to the building.
When I finally got inside the building, I saw a couple people standing in line. I enquired where to go for a court appearance and they pointed me towards the reception.
As soon as I reached the reception, I told myself – “This is it!”. The next course of my life is going to be decided now and there is no turning back. There were two lovely ladies sitting in the reception and I greeted them. Upon exchanging pleasantries, I tried to explain my situation and asked where I should wait for my hearing before a judge.
What happened next, I will never forget.
The two ladies just looked at each other and gave a big smile. One of the kind ladies told me to hand over the ticket to them and confirmed that there was no need to see the judge as they are too busy today. Their response got me confused. I checked with them again and got the same answer.
The next thing on my mind was how do I pay my speeding ticket and (this was simply unbelievable) she mentioned there was no need to pay the amount. I couldn’t believe my ears. I asked for a reason for that, for which, she said that she would discard the charges. Man, this was simply becoming unbelievable.
I literally had tears in eyes. I couldn’t thank them enough about their generosity and helping nature. Man, I felt like I just got my freedom back. All the worries and frustrations just disappeared in the thin air and I could finally breathe freely. I was happy and excited at the same time.
This happiness lasted for 15 minutes as we had to figure out how to get home, which was roughly 6 hours drive away. That’s where the second part of this story starts, which is also equally interesting and enjoyable, so stay tuned!
Next stop: Struggle to get home!!!
stochasticity 
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