both cars in front of me were both getting ticketed so really, i had no choice but to wait my turn before i could get to my destination about 2 blocks away.

i remember being really pissed about it. it was not my fault that i had no front license plates on. i bought my car and the vw dealership i bought it from never drilled holes for the plate holder. and since i live about an hour and a half from said dealership, it was hard enough to find time to go back there and get it done.

i called a closer vw dealership to see if they could attend to my problem but they wanted to charge me a shitload of money to do so.

so...i waited and waited and waited. then i got this ticket. so i make an appointment with the santa monica vw dealership which is the one closer to me for my 40k car service and to also pay them the shitload of money to install the front license plate brackets.

i was told by the ticketing officer that the dealership who installs my plates could sign for my ticket and all i have to do is send it in signed. no problem i thought. well, it turned out that the guy at the dealership wouldn't do it.

the next step was to find out where i could get someone to sign off my ticket and this was the worst part. it took me numerous calls before i found someone who knew where i could take care of my ticket. i swear, i had to talk to 3 different people before i was directed to the right place. i even had to pay $10 to get a "proof of correction" certificate. once i got that, i had to mail it in. for $10, you'd think that they'd have some sort of computer administered log so you wouldn't have to mail in anything. such a hassle!

anyway, i totally, completely forgot to mail in my certificate by the extended due date, which was september 7. i panicked. i started to make all sorts of calls to see if i could talk to someone without success. every time i'd get an automated system. i just don't get why they make it so easy for you to get a ticket and so hard for you to get things corrected. i even went online to see if i could take care of it without further success. finally, i gave up and decided to just mail in the damn certificate even if it was going to be 2 weeks late. for a few days i fretted about getting my license suspended or having to pay a huge penalty fee.

so finally, i forgot about the whole thing until last night when i decided to check online and look up my ticket record. i was so relieved when it stated that my case or ticket was "dismissed." phew!