Laying Down the Law

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My late father was an attorney, a man of principles and ethics. I, his offspring, am a law-abiding citizen, or so I like to think. While I don’t fully understand certain matters of the law, I do understand that it is my duty to live within its established parameters. I was also recently reminded that not knowing about a particular law in no way excuses one from the consequences of steering afoul of it—just for example, the hot summer day this past August when I parked sanely, cheerfully and entirely without premeditation in the last shady spot without a meter, only to discover that I needed to cough up $142 to the City of Oakland without delay. The fact that this particular sum could have been invested in a far worthier cause and caused an excessive amount of emotional suffering and questioning of justice itself since I was engaged in volunteering with a community radio show at the time, and that I narrowly avoided fainting when startled by the sight of two nearly identical tickets ($71 each) tucked cozily under the windshield blade in a four-hour slice of time, is of no importance.

I decided to brush up on the local statutes and change my ways. I discovered that in neighboring Berkeley, it’s against the law to whistle for your lost canary before 7am. I don’t currently have a canary, but when and if I do, I swear he’ll have a little canary G.P.S. in tow. Throughout my state, it’s illegal to eat an orange in a bathtub—I hope I have never done this, though there’s not a word about hot tubs, so other people’s fruit orgies still stand a chance. I’ve never visited Alabama, but when I journey there at last, I can’t claim I didn’t know that anyone who wears a fake moustache in church and causes unseemly laughter is subject to arrest. Likewise, I won’t be taking any chances or even many toiletries to Hackberry, Arizona, where gargling is prohibited while flying.

I can live with these rules. Even Pacific Grove’s ordinance, which makes it a misdemeanor to kill or threaten a butterfly, and the harsh law in Victorville prohibiting one from shooting canned foods open with a revolver (not that I haven’t been seriously tempted once or twice). If I’ve managed this long, I can still refrain from tying my giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp, thus steering clear of legal trouble in Atlanta.