Today is my last day of law school classes.  I was beginning to think I would never be able to type that sentence.  Only one paper revision and two exams stand between me and this whole experience being over.  I should be writing about how thrilled I am and how I’m bouncing off the walls with happiness… except that this week is out to get me.  So I just hid in my bed refusing to get up for a while.  First Monday’s bad day… then yesterday happens.

I had just had coffee with one of my friends, something that rarely happens lately, and I was in a really good mood.  So I sat in the window of Starbucks after she left and finished my last reading assignment for law school ever.  AMAZING. I have read probably hundreds of thousands of pages in the last three years and now DONE. So I’m in a good mood.

So I hop in my car that finally has four inflated wheels, and I head back to school.  Now doing that is easier said than done these days.  The city is installing a new addition to our light rail system, and it’s running down the main street that divides the upper part of the city from the lower part.  Every day a new street is closed, and this week, they’re all down to one lane and a traffic nightmare.

So I’m sitting in my car, stopped at a light in the traffic nightmare where I’ve been sitting for a few minutes, and it’s clear I’m going to be sitting for a lot longer, and I have my phone in my hand.  I cracked the case, so I was playing with it, trying to decide if I need to order a new one from Kate Spade.  It vibrates in my hand, so I flip it over and run my finger across the screen to see why.

BAM!

Cop pulls up in the closed lane next to me with his lights on.  He tells me to pull over into this closed lane as well.  So I do.  Before he even gets to the window to tell me why he has me pulled over in this traffic mess, A NEWS CREW GETS OUT OF THE BACKSEAT.  The photographer is in my face at my window taking pictures of me before he even gets to tell me what I did wrong.  He asks me what I was doing with my phone.  I said, checking to see why it vibrated.  I wasn’t texting, I wasn’t e-mailing.  I never even got so far as to see what it was.

So he demands my phone.  This is where law school 101 should have kicked in.  No. He couldn’t have my phone.  That would be an excessive illegal search. Or at least that would have been my argument if I hadn’t stupidly handed it over.  He opens it, and it opens to my e-mail app because I was on my e-mail in Starbucks, and he says that since it’s not a dialing screen, I get a ticket.

I try to reason with him.  There are no new e-mails, no sent e-mails.  Nope.  I show him what made the phone vibrate to verify my story that I was looking to see WHY. Nope.

Now normally, I would have been doing something wrong.  I have made a an effort not to text or email while driving lately, but I do it once in a while.  I’m not denying it.  Then I would have just taken the ticket and paid it.  But this whole thing is sketchy.  If I’m allowed to answer my iPhone, and what I did was the same motion you have to make to answer an iPhone… how is that probable cause?  And a news crew in my face? Really?!? And he didn’t ask for my phone, he demanded it.

I did take my frustration out on the news crew, who was obviously riding along ONLY to watch him pull over people and try to prove what they were or weren’t doing on their phone.  Law school crazy person came out on them. The cop was pissed I wouldn’t let them use my name or image.  Again, really?!? I can’t be the only person who thinks that’s ridiculous!

I am frustrated. This week is out to get me.

But today is the last day I will ever sit in a law school class.  At 3:45 this afternoon, I’m done.  Maybe that means my bad luck is done too.  A girl can hope.