Beyond already having two speeding tickets on my record, and a few dented bumpers (like a typical mountain town car), I recently got a moving violation and citation for driving without proof of insurance on Teton Pass. Oops! (Good thing he didn’t bust me for driving with an expired temporary license, too.)

It all started on my way to the airport to jumpstart my travel freelance writing career. This trip was at least half paid for, so off I went. Mission La Grave, France, March 2007: 4:30 a.m. hit a snow bank in a blizzard. Picture a Subaru with two tires spinning in the air and a girl cursing like a mad woman while trying to dig it out with an avalanche shovel. That was me. I was about to miss my flight – and did. After a $125 tow, I luckily was able to drive back home to rebook my flight, which meant I actually had to buy another ticket. (Don’t ever miss an international flight, ever.) I forgot about my delinquent driving, and off I went to play in the foreign version of Jackson (i.e. Disneyworld) in France.

Back to reality: I was given two options from the snow bank disaster after returning from ski-mountaineering in France: get USAA to fax the proof of insurance to the Teton County Circuit Court to wave the citation or pay the fine and take traffic school to avoid having my ticket reported to my insurance company. So, I obviously called up my insurance company. Ring, ring …

Me: “Could you fax my proof of insurance to Teton County Circuit Court so I don’t get a $400 fine. Just a little mix up that involved a snow bank. No biggie (lie), and nothing to report (lie).”

Tricia (USSA representative): “I looks like we still have your car ‘in storage.’ You don’t have liability coverage, and haven’t for six months.”

Me: “How could this happen?” (Tears, sobbing, dread. I remembered). “This goes back to September when I changed the policy because I was going to be in South America for two months and tried to save a buck. I thought I had told USAA to put me back on the regular plan come November. Do you have record of that?”

Tricia: “No.”

Me: “Shit. Oymygod, (tears, sobbing, dread) I never knew because I set up automatic debit withdrawals with you and never checked to see if it was actually happening. Shit. So this is my fault?”

Tricia: “Thank your lucky stars you weren’t in a major crash. You could have been ruined.”

Me: “Whoa.”

And that’s when I went to the Circuit Court to pay my biggest police bill ever, $450 of hard-earned freelance paychecks from about a million stories. I signed up for traffic school.

This is a lesson, maybe I should spend a little more time in Realityland.