Storytime - Quani's SophistiRatchet 33rd

Oh what a night!
(We'll discuss this interesting fellow next time)

So here's how it all  went down. 

First let me say this... everything that COULD go wrong that week DID!

And while i'm at it, can I just say that New York traffic laws are formed in the oven of satan!!

Picture it..

It's the Wednesday before Qday  (my Birthday) and I'm driving through lower Manhattan. Whipping it because you know, I'm a G. So there I am in my 99 Oldsmobile Cutlass looking like a scene out of "Friday" trying my damndest not to chase down a cabbie and taze him for cutting me off. I go to make a turn on Madison Avenue and next thing I know Jake and his two homies (the police) done signaled me to pull over. 

I'm annoyed but I stay calm knowing that they're probably just targeting me because I'm a young Black playa in a foreign whip (just go with it). So they all come over to my car... which by the way already has all the windows down because you know, outside IS my air conditioning. #teamnoACinthisBih

But she digresses. So I ask why I'm being pulled over and they inform me that it's because in New York it is illegal to make a turn while the pedestrian is still crossing the street. In my head I'm like

" what the hell?! This is blatant racism or fatcism or girlcism. It's got to be one of the Cisms because there's no way on hell that that's a real life law!".

But I keep my composure, give them my info and go to my Zen place in my mind... Cheesecake Factory on free cheesecake day, as I chant "321...123...What the hell is bothering me?" ( 5 monopoly dollars for whomever can name the 90's sitcom that is from). Well, after about hmmm a good 7.5 minutes ( I may or may not have been counting) I'm awaken from my Cheesecake Factory happy place by sirens of another cop car jetting across traffic to cut in front of my car. And suddenly there are SIX, yes...you heard motha, SIX cops surrounding my car. 

You know...for like 26 seconds I thought that maybe I'd forgotten about the keys and bricks and birds (all drug references because I'm about that life) that I had in my trunk. But then I snapped out of it and remembered that my bitch ass won't even sneak into a movie, let alone be a damn trap queen (am I using that term correctly?). Anywho, they ask me to step out of the car and the punk in me is ready to just lay down and die where I stand but I'm thinking "Quani don't give them the satisfaction!" So I put on my Ice Cube grit and and ask "for what?!" They inform me that my driving privileges are suspended in the state of NY due to a ticket from quite a few years back and proceed to handcuff a baby G! Girl! All at once my whole world collides! Who's gonna wear my cute birthday dress? I think. Am I gonna have to skip Atlanta? I worry. Will I miss the season premiere of Empire?! I ponder.

Child by the time they sit me in the back of that car I gaze out of the window at all of the free White people in their fancy business suits or taking their dogs for walks like its not 11 in the morning and the water works begin!! I mean I cried like I'd found the perfect wide width, strappy, block heel, in every color and size 9 was the only size missing! I cried like Haagan Daaz stopped making Vanilla Swiss Almond ice cream! I cried like I do when I watch Queen Latifah die in "Set it Off"! So much so that the cop sitting in the back with me tries to comfort me. But honey, there was no comforting me in that moment.

Once at the station they put me in a jail cell with a man whom I was sure was gonna flash me when the cops turned around, who legit only knew like 4 English words, and seemed to have an affinity for plush, Black girls who are made of prayers and magic! Which naturally made me cry even more. I felt so demeaned. I seriously was offended that they'd treat a traffic ticket with the same voracity that they would whatever Flashing Frank was being charged with. I thought for half a second of just giving up on trying to do shit the  right way! I got tired of of what seemed like a never ending ditch. I mean, I know that in many ways I created my own roadblocks but I work VERY hard to be accountable and to clear them and sometimes they just pop up like a herpe! So for a moment I felt extremely defeated, I just didn't want to hope anymore or have faith in anything or dream. I honestly just wanted to die. Not physically, but spiritually. I reasoned that perhaps it would just be easier to let the waves of life and circumstance push me where ever it pleased. And it's not even that it was that big of a deal but it felt like that feather that landed ever so gently on the pile of boulders on my back.

But that's the thing about resilience. The shit just won't let you acquiesce to life. It's like the smelling salts that will wake you whether u want to be up or not! So I spent the next two hours visualizing the future I desire, the future I deserve. I imagined how happy I'd be on my Birthday, I dreamed about my launch day for my new website...I thought of all the reasons I had to fight the hell back! To keep hoping and pushing and dreaming and before I knew it they were telling me I could go home.

They couldn't tell me in detail what had come up in the system to make them arrest me and said this it could all be a computer error. Trust me, I was pissed and annoyed but I decided that it was up to me to decide how I internalized what had happened and made a choice to see it as an alert from God to get more on top of things and be more proactive.

The next day I paid off a 3 year old ticket and went about planning my birthday... and boy was it an interesting one!

Light & Love,

Quani