LENIENCY: Everybody is equal in traffic court. Except the judge.

There’s a scene in My Cousin Vinny where Vinny explains to the rival attorney that the reason a foul-mouthed sleazebag like himself made the unlikely choice to become a lawyer was because as a young man he realized, after cross-examining his citating officer in traffic court, that he had a natural, innate gift for legal argument. Remember? As the story goes, his judge that day was so impressed with Vinny’s legal prowess that he not only suggested Vinny take up law, but also mentored and molded him into the chronically underdressed, culturally ignorant, squeaky-voiced Yankee dipstick who somehow manages to get his nephew (spoiler alert: the Karate Kid avoids the death penalty) acquitted of an Alabama murder charge.

Three weeks ago I got a speeding ticket. And walking into the courtroom today, my plan is to use a couple of carefully practiced legal-sounding words to impress the judge so much that he reduces my fine to the allowable minimum (zero, maybe?), leaves my license point-free, and refrains from sending me to driving school.

To the court, I’ve come prepared, sporting shirt, tie, and a pair of $19 pants from Old Navy— a store, according to my wife, for people much younger than 34. The pants are, in fact, a little too tight in the crotch, a little too short at the ankles, but when I put them in my trunk at seven a.m., they seemed like the best choice.

On my way to work (painting my sister-in-law’s bedroom), I pull my car over and dial my brother who’s a federal prosecutor for the justice department. After mocking my latest batch of desperate and uninformed fantasy football maneuvers (screw yourself, Matt Cassel), he offers advice and I come away with a special new word that is sure to make the judge think I’m smart and elicit his honor’s empathy. This new word is: leniency.

As in, “I’d like to ask the court for leniency.”

I hang up, pop the car into drive, and before I get to work I’m trying lines out loud. “I’d like to petition the court for leniency.” Better yet, “I’d like to respectfully petition the court for leniency.”

I riff on this throughout my day with a seriousness reserved for job-hopping, professionless fathers like myself, whose monthly budgeting (my wife manages ours, thank God) is dependent on living cheap and avoiding unexpected expenses like traffic tickets.

I Shop-Vac hunks of cat hair out of corner moldings and add a bit about accepting responsibility for my actions. I paint two ancient radiators and plan my explanation of the trooper’s deposition. By the time I comb out my brushes, I’ve crafted and memorized a no-bullshit, oratory masterpiece.

I’m so excited to drop this lyrical bombshell that I skip a late-lunch and arrive at the courthouse 40 minutes before my designated be-there time of four o’clock. I cross the parking lot to the door, head high, chest out, blasting confidence, running my lines, ready, right now, this second to get it on.

The clerk sends me through a doorway and into a cramped, too-hot hallway where I, along with 250 other speeders, stand in a line that, for three straight hours (I shit you not) does not advance a single step.

The waiting period gives me a sweet case of self-consciousness. Here I am preparing to represent myself to a judge as a man who deserves some extra special leniency because when compared to the general public he is deemed more worthy. Because he thinks he is better.

But I’m a complete hypocrite. Look at me standing here: I’ve got an ingrown hair on my upper lip that is swelling into a red pimple, my forehead grease could be harvested to take the head off a trashcan full of Guinness, I feel like I might have a hernia because my Old Navy pants are so tight, I got speckles of paint on both hands from work, I haven’t shaved, which means the mole on my face has hair growing out of it, which is, admittedly disgusting but usually goes unnoticed by me because it’s on my left side, which is the side my funny eye doesn’t turn to, which is to say that sometimes I go cross-eyed and see double. My hair is hat-headed, my breath stinks like dental surgery.

But then I start to look at my peers. And you know what? When judged by contemporary standards we’re all pretty damn nauseating to look at. I take in the pimples, the frizzy hair, frumpy butts, uneven boobs, and I feel a sense of community. I don’t need to pretend I’m something I’m not to curry favor with the judge, I should just be myself, accept my place.

“Alonzo Williams,” calls the judge.

Moment of truth. Should I be myself or strive for something more?

I go for it.

“Your honor, I accept full responsibility for my actions, but I’d like to respectfully petition the court for leniency based on a clarification of the circumstances. I was cited in-excess just two tenths of a mile past a speed reduction from 65 to 55. I had my cruise set at 72 and simply did not click it off on time. This is a route I drive every day and I am not a habitual speeder.”

Okay. That went well. But the judge is frowning like he doesn’t understand. Shoot, he looks offended and before he says a word I know why. He’s not seeing me as an intelligent, self-confident man beaming with lawyerly potential. No. Instead, he’s looking at a house painter in tight pants who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. An arrogant jerk who is right now wasting the time of every single person unlucky enough to be in this courtroom on a Friday night.

“They offered you a plea that drops this to a parking ticket and you go to traffic school,” he says.

“Yes, your honor,” I say too quickly, too loudly, sounding way too eager to please.

“And that’s not good enough for you?” That look again, mock bewilderment, like he didn’t hear me right.

“Oh.”

“Because a lot of towns wouldn’t offer you that much,” he says.

“Oh no. Of course,” I say.

“So you’re going to accept the plea?”

I exhale a nervous smile, trying to show him just how on-board I am with anything he says. “Yeah, yes, I’ve got to take it, right? Of course, I’m going to take it.”

“You think you can do better?” An accusation phrased as a rhetorical question. He looks at me, biting his bottom lip now, sizing me up.

Dear God, he’s not going to—is he going to single me out for an extra severe penalty? Oh, man, I deserve it, don’t I? What’s a worse crime than hypocrisy? Thinking I could come in here and be something I’m not. Leniency? Who am I kidding? I should get locked up behind the razor wire and the shotgunners, general population, fresh fish, the yard, maybe get shit on like that bald dude in Oz.

I try telepathy: Please just treat me like everyone else. I’m no better, no worse.

I wait for the bailiff to mace me or to pop my Adam’s apple with his nightstick, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, the judge’s expression falls flat and disinterested and he jots a note and gives me the same line he’s given everyone else.

Hundred-dollar fine. Traffic school.

Note to self: You are not as smart as you think.

—alonzo williams