My (admittedly lame) excuse is that my defenses were down

The past week has been kind of a nightmare, with some points of light thrown in, in the form of my parents' visit and Zeke's birthday party.  To which I forgot to take my camera and thus got no pictures.  Pfft.

So last Wednesday I was in the middle of doing a workout and holding 25 pounds weights in each hand while bending forward at the waist.  It's a hamstring exercise - you keep your back flat and let your legs do all the work as you lift and lower your torso.  And I was maintaining proper form, not even letting my arms dangle, but rather keeping them slightly engaged so as not to pull on my back too much.  But then all of a sudden I felt a little pull right in the middle of my back on the left side, about level with the bottom of my shoulder blade, and then the rest of my torso started to spasm and I couldn't move without excruciating pain. 

I put my weights down and managed to find an ice pack in the freezer and lie down on it on the couch.  J brought me a bunch of Advil and an Aleve, so I took them and waited for the pain to subside while I worried about how I was going to function over the next couple of days. 

Finally the medicine kicked in and I was able to get around without doubling over in pain every few seconds, so I showered and dressed and got the kids off to school.

The next two days were spent at a big annual convention for all of the state special education directors.  I gave a speech on Thursday, which went fine, but Thursday night I started feeling a tickle in my throat and Friday my tonsils and my neck glands were definitely acting up.  I went to the conference for a little while, but by around 11 a.m. I was feeling really shitty and I didn't really need to stay, so I went home.

My parents arrived a couple of hours later, to spend Zeke's birthday weekend with us.  Unfortunately, I spend the bulk of the time feeling crappy and lying on the couch, nursing a virus that mimicked strep in every regard -- extremely painful sore throat, swollen glands, and fever -- but wasn't *actually* strep, meaning that the doctor wouldn't give me any antibiotics for it.  Plus my strained back muscle was still acting up, so I was a pathetic mess.  I felt well enough to make it to Zeke's party on Sunday morning, which was really fun -- we went to a little dinosaur museum over in Morrison that has great hands-on exhibits and activities for kids -- but by the end of the weekend I was spent.

Monday I stayed home from work and slept and caught up on my DVR'd shows.  J went to work, but also had a court date at 1:15 in Jefferson County because he got pulled over a couple of months ago for having expired tags - I thought he had renewed them and he thought I had.  No big deal, right?  All he had to do was show up with the renewed registration and maybe pay a little fine.

Now, I've mentioned in the past that Australians in general, and my husband in particular, are notorious practical jokers.  And I grew up in a family of bullshit artists, so I tend to be pretty good at ferreting out the nonsense. 

But I guess I was tired.  And in pain.  And grumpy. 

And thus obviously unprepared when I received this text message from J approximately 5 minutes after he was due in court:  "$1000 and 10 days jail"

Because I freaked. 

If someone were telling me a story like this about someone else, I would have been all, "Oh, ha ha, good one."

But J has a history of getting kicked around by law enforcement.  So my initial reaction was, "NO!  WHAT THE FUCK??  REALLY??"  followed by furious efforts to call him.  But he didn't pick up his phone and I got more and more worked up and finally I just called the court.

CLERK:  Hello, Jefferson County Court, Criminal and Traffic Division.

ME:  Yeah, hi.  Uh, my husband had a court date this morning for a traffic ticket and I was just trying to find out what was going on with his case. 

[I give her the ticket number.]

CLERK:  Yep, here it is.  Looks like the DA dismissed it.

ME:  Really?  I'm so confused.  I got a text from my husband saying that he was assessed a huge fine and jail time, and I don't get it because it doesn't seem like failing to renew your registration on time would be a jailable offense.

CLERK:  Ma'am, I think he was just messing with you.

Ya think??