"you're in a world of hurt . . ."

it all started with an illegal u-turn . . .

we got pulled over in new jersey for this criminal offense and it went downhill from there.  that was when the policeman realized our registration was expired and he informed us that he had to impound our car.  (remember, we had most everything we owned, loved, and cherished in and on top of our car.)  josh provided the paperwork to prove that he was in the process of renewing our registration, and after a very long time in his car, the cop came back and this is how it went down:

cop:  "i'm not going to impound your car because i can see you have your family with you. do you have anyone you can call to come get you?"  

josh:  "uh, no."

cop: "well, you can get out and go across the street to that hotel and stay there and figure out what you're gonna do."

josh:  "can i just drive across the street and park there?"

cop:  "no, you can't drive this car.  the registration is expired.  you can't drive it at all."

josh:  "what are we supposed to do?"

cop:  "i don't know man, but you're in a world of hurt."

josh:  "if i was to just drive out of here, what would happen?"

cop:  "listen,  you're an upstanding citizen, i can't tell you what to do, but if you were to get in an accident, i would get in a lot of trouble for not impounding your car, not to mention all the trouble you would be in for driving after receiving this citation.  i don't know what you're gonna do.  you're in a world of hurt."

(me, thinking)  "listen cop man, if you say 'world of hurt' again i'm gonna 'world of hurt' your face."

so with that, he was off.  and we sat there in an abandoned restaurant's parking lot for about and hour and a half trying to decide what to do.  josh called various trucking companies to see about towing our car, shipping companies about shipping our car, car rental companies about renting a car and then just driving back some time to get our car.  ugh.  what a mess.  it was miserable.  every option was horrible and horribly expensive.  the whole time, i had been saying, "why don't we just drive away?"  but every time i said it, we would think about what would happen if that cop happened to see us and pull us over again.  or what would happen if we got pulled over for anything on our way to boston?  would josh go to jail?  what about cornell?  would they kick him out?  would byu-i revoke his man-of-the-year title?  all these things weighed heavily on our minds.

meanwhile, what do the children of outlaws do while waiting to make a run for it?  why, run around the parking lot, pick leaves, splash in pathetic puddles, and play "chase the duct tape" of course.

all of the options josh was looking into weren't working out.  so we started seriously thinking about just making a run for the border.  pennsylvania was about five miles away and we knew all we had to do was get across the border and we'd be out of new jersey and we could start a new life.  i asked josh if it would be contradictory for us to pray for help to get out of new jersey safely. . . with us being outlaws and all.

anyway, we did pray and we did make it safely all the way to boston without incident.  but that's not to say we were not totally nervous.  we ended up getting a little lost trying to get to the pennsylvania border so we were in new jersey for longer than we wanted . . . and the whole time we were scanning the roads for cops.  it was kinda funny seeing josh running from the law.

luckily, my dad said he would bail us out if we got hauled off to jail, so we were okay there.

it was one good time.  our little jaunt from virginia to philadelphia to boston ended up being a much bigger headache than we had hoped for.  being held up so long in new jersey put us in new york city right at the height of traffic.  that was lovely.

but we made it to boston (norwood, actually) late last night and moved into our furnished town home.  it's totally byu housing, circa 1971.  josh said it perfectly when he compared it to aspen village (for those of you byu-i alumni).  it's kinda funny, but it's only for 10 weeks. 

more to come . . .