I'm a Dangerous Criminal

On Wednesday I'm going to the town of Manasquan to participate in what I consider a waste of taxpayer money. I'm facing a maximum of 2000 dollar fine for walking on the dunes.

The scene was my last visit to the shore, to the annual Liz Levine shore pilgrimage. I had arrived late, but everyone was still up waiting for latecomers to come in from a concert. I went out on the deck to get some fresh air and saw hooligans setting off fireworks on the beach. Wanting a better look, I hopped over the deck rail and wandered up the sand ridge in front of the beach. I didn't cross a fence and there were no signs there.

Less than a minute after arriving they all scattered. I was amused to see some police officers walking toward the area along the boardwalk. I admit I was sadistically looking forward to seeing some harassment. In beautiful irony, they filtered quickly off past two of the officers while one came over to harass me. He asked me for my license and I happily handed it over. At this point I assumed that he was just making sure I wasn't causing trouble. When he started writing out a ticket, he refused to tell me what he was doing.

Finally he told me that I wasn't allowed on the dune and that he "wrote a lot of these every week, it was just a little fine". I asked him several times if the people who were fooling around and setting off fireworks on the beach were going to get in trouble, but he ignored the questions. I was a little pissed off at this turn of fate, but honestly more in disbelief that I was getting a ticket. The icing on the cake is that I received a summons notice the next week. Walking on the dunes is not just a little fine, it's a federal law and I was required in court. So now I'll most likely be paying a fine, plus spending two days in NJ that I need to work on my thesis just because this police officer decided to get particularly strict. However, the moral of the story truly is this: never say you have your license on you when you're not in a car. Here's to ruining the image of law enforcement.