DIGRESSION

While I'm away I have someone checking up on my house, making sure the toilets flush and the air conditioning cools and such. Also she forwards my mail. Today I receive a letter from a community college I never heard of telling me I owe them money. I call the phone number on the letter head and I'm transferred to campus security. I am being charged $55 for a parking violation: a silver Infinity with California plates and student decal was parked in a faculty lot. The car is assumed to be mine and until the fine is paid I'm not allowed to register for courses. Thing is, I don't own a silver Infinity much less with California plates.

I asked the woman I'm speaking to how she got my name. Well, she said, she called California DMV and the Infinity was registered to someone with a similar name to mine. So she searched "the system". The system, meaning all the community colleges, threw out that I had once taken a non-credit T'ai Chi course at one of the branches. The woman at campus security added everything up and the car I don't own parked at the school I never heard of pointed to me. But, she said, I don't have to pay.