When I say Long, you say Island. Long ... Island!! Long ... Island!!
Long Island is the loud, brash place I grew up. Its identity is based largely on being a car culture, where kids can express themselves by speeding, blasting hip-hop, tinting their windows and partying in parking lots. Some of my Smithtown friends spent a lot to upgrade their two-door Civics, but not me.
I had a passed-down white Suburban with blue bench seats and a sweet tape deck. No customization allowed. Gas was less than $2, so the only real expense came from cops and the auto body shop. During the summer of ’99, I was billed by both, twice, in one week.
Between July 4 and July 11, the cops and cop shop docked me $1000. A grand. That’s more than twice what the 90th percentile spends a month, and roughly a hundred extra hours working in the sweaty kitchen of a local fish restaurant.
The first ticket was excusable. A road by my house is a mile-long straightaway that begs for the ‘burban to burn rubber. The second ticket, a week later, destroyed my youthful disregard for the law’s ability to affect my funds. These speeding penalties book-ended a pair of accidents that happened within ten hours of each other. No one was hurt, except my bank account.
Long Island is the loud, brash place I grew up. Its identity is based largely on being a car culture, where kids can express themselves by speeding, blasting hip-hop, tinting their windows and partying in parking lots. Some of my Smithtown friends spent a lot to upgrade their two-door Civics, but not me.
I had a passed-down white Suburban with blue bench seats and a sweet tape deck. No customization allowed. Gas was less than $2, so the only real expense came from cops and the auto body shop. During the summer of ’99, I was billed by both, twice, in one week.
Between July 4 and July 11, the cops and cop shop docked me $1000. A grand. That’s more than twice what the 90th percentile spends a month, and roughly a hundred extra hours working in the sweaty kitchen of a local fish restaurant.
The first ticket was excusable. A road by my house is a mile-long straightaway that begs for the ‘burban to burn rubber. The second ticket, a week later, destroyed my youthful disregard for the law’s ability to affect my funds. These speeding penalties book-ended a pair of accidents that happened within ten hours of each other. No one was hurt, except my bank account.
