Today's Moment of Awkward: Community Service Family Reunion

Two years ago I was sentenced to do two days of community service.  I'm not going to tell you what for (a girl has to have her secrets), but suffice it to say out of all the people I met there I had far and away the shortest sentence.  Most people were serving 30 to 60 days, often for drunk driving.  There was another boy who as a fraternity prank had been commanded to set a palm tree on fire.  When he was caught his fraternity brothers abandoned him and he was expelled from school.  He was pretty bitter about it.  There was a very quiet girl who was serving 300 days, a totally unheard of penalty.  She was the center of a lot of the community service gossip.  What had she possibly done?  I had no beef with her because she helped me pick out a prime trash-picker-upper-thingy, but I can't say I wasn't curious.  Eventually I found out that she had been the get-away-driver in a convenience store robbery.  She was supposed to do jail time but she was pregnant at the time and the baby daddy was the one who planned the robbery, so they let her off with community service after she gave birth.  Let's just say, I don't usually meet people with these sorts of problems.

During this time I also learned a lot about what people litter on the highway.  A shocking amount of it is porn related.  These are just a few of the gems I picked up along the road:

But the most awkward encounter of the day was on the transportation van.  I was seated next to a young Mexican kid who seemed incredibly nervous.  He was staring into his lap with a vengeance.  I asked him if he was okay and he pointed out a man who was about to get on the van.

Nervous Kid: That's my Dad.  I haven't seen him in four years.

Okay, I'm sorry, but WHAT?  That is insane!  This kid and his delinquent dad both have community service on the same day in the same location??  And they were both assigned to same van?  I tried to think of something helpful to add to the situation.  This is what I came up with:

Me:  Oh... wow.

So then of course what happened next but the DAD SAT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF ME.  I was sitting between an estranged father and son AT COMMUNITY SERVICE.

Estranged dad: Miguel, I...

Nervous Kid: Don't.

It took about fifteen minutes for the van to reach our destination.  It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life.  As we picked up trash the estranged father kept trying to get close to his son and the son kept moving on ahead.  But finally, at lunch, the dad bought the son some tacos off the food truck we stopped at and they sat down on the curb to eat together.  As far as I could tell they didn't speak a word, but it seemed like a step in the right direction.  Community service: Bringing Families Together.

P.S.  So... so far the only pictures I've put up have been porn and sex related.  That seems about right.