6/2/2011 I think my daughter is a schlimazel—you know, the one who doesn’t do the stuff all the time, the one who it gets done TO. I think it was explained as the schlemiel spills the soup and the schlimazel is the one it’s spilled on.

For her, she’s done relatively well overall. No accidents, no tickets, no arrests, not too many bad moods, and not even staying out late. So, we blindly carry on, trying to forget about the past and not be too worked up by upcoming court dates to deal with the old stuff.

Too good to be true. She decided to spend time with a friend of hers, doing normal things like shopping and eating. She got dressed up in a pretty dress, did her hair, and wore new shoes her grandmother treated her to. She picked up her friend and on their way out, made a right on red, not realizing that it was the only intersection in this whole city of millions where you’re forbidden to do so. She was stopped immediately and ticketed. Upon researching her license, the officer discovered that her license is actually suspended—making this stop a huge problem. Long story short, her car was impounded.

I got the hysterical phone call to come pick her up and luckily I had come home from work early so I could come right away. The car was gone by the time I got there—I don’t understand why I couldn’t just take it myself, since my license is good and the car is registered in my name. But there was no sense arguing. We were both respectful to the officer—by training, instinct, and good sense. He could’ve thrown the book at her and had her arrested. Thank God there was nothing for her to worry about like in the past—such as pipes, residue, open containers…This was a terrible situation—we had to make a plan because my daughter has not one, but two jobs.  I ended up getting up at the crack of dawn to take her to work and she took the bus to her second job. She relied on friends here and there to give her rides, but most of the time she was stuck at home. I let her cry over it.

In the meantime, she finally read her last ticket(s), which clearly said she  needed to attend traffic school in order to reinstate her license. She took a day to make arrangements and attended a week later. We also picked up her car at the impound lot. What a pain in the rear. I had to spend two hours in a police coding enforcement office near the airport and pay a fine of $150 to get the clearance to pick up her car. Then we had to find a second driver to get her car from the lot, which was about a half hour north of our house. Her buddy was her driver until she finally went to the DMV to get her license back. That made her crazy.

She’s now got her car back and we thought life would be good—BUT we found out that the Attorney General’s Office is on her trail. Instead of a hearing at the Juvenile Court, it’s been moved to the AG’s and it’ll be a real court proceeding. It  not only means that they’re tired of all these complaints, but she’s about one strike away from being detained. It also means that she may be placed on probation, where they can run her life for a long time, drug test her, put her in a program, and make her do community service  and maybe more. The case will be overseen by a probation officer until she’s 18 (in December). After that, one mistake and she goes to jail for sure. I spoke with the juvie social worker, a very negative, hard woman, and that’s what she said. I got defensive—I couldn’t help it. My child isn’t a thug or white trash, and she isn’t what’s on paper. Those are just things she’s done. I don’t deny it, I just don’t appreciate someone else categorizing my daughter without knowing her.

This is overwhelming and she’s very depressed. She apologized for being such a terrible daughter and it broke my heart. What could I do? I told her nothing will make me stop loving her, believing in her, and being proud of her. I know she tries, I really do, poor kid’s just a schlimazel.