Win? Lose? Draw!

We were gobsmacked when the cop pulled us over last September. I was sure hubby had been speeding but only barely.
"Guess you've just had a birthday, eh?" the cop says to hubby.
"Nope," is his reply, "My birthday's in October."
Sticking his head a little further in our window, he says, "Guess you've just had a birthday, eh?" to me.
"No," I reply -- thinking what the Hell?! "My birthday's in January."
"Well, your license sticker is expired. Expired in July." He takes down the vitals and hands hubby a ticket for $110 but advises us to fight it as the sticker is unrelated to our birthdays. "See you in court," he says tipping his hat politely.

As this happened on our way to Montreal, we decide to immediately head to the Department of Transport to renew our yearly sticker as we don't want to risk the Quebec police giving us a second ticket.

In Canada, sticker renewals are geared to the owner's birthday, but in our case, it's just a haphazard date with no relation to either of our birthdays. Plus the DOT usually advises people by mail to renew a month before the sticker expires but we hadn't received any notice. So, today was our day (read my day since hubby couldn't make it) in court.

I sit in a very modern if small courtroom amongst all types, ages of people there to fight whatever penalty has been dealt them. My seatmates are two young women; one caught tailgating a police car, the other speeding. I note from appearance there are a preponderance of people of various cultures but that is typically Canadian; we're a nation of all-sorts. There is a translator there for some Arabic-speaker but nothing for the lady who speaks French. Ummm. The judge is a lady who, it is quickly apparent, doesn't take any s--t as we like to say in Ontario.

My husband's name is called; I stand and identify myself on his behalf, and state "Guilty with an explanation." Of course we are guilty; we didn't have the updated sticker so no quarrel there. But I explain our is a relatively new car for which we expected a renewal sticker in October. "Didn't you notice the expired sticker?" she asked incredulously.
"No," I replied in all honesty. "We always approach the car from the front."
"How long have you been driving?" she asked.
I admit my face must have revealed my distaste for her question. After all wasn't her question age-ist and what did it have to do with our noticing a sticker? Did she mean I've been driving so long I can no longer see? I came this close to questioning her question but quickly thought the better of it given her no-nonsense demeanor.

I paused for effect (as if calculating, after all I've been driving for 40 years which even I find a long time), then replied "Since I was 16, Your Worship."

No way, was I giving away my age! I think she realized her faux pas at this point and while more or less stating we should have known better (and we should have, I guess), she reduced the charge to $20. To this the Court adds a victim support surcharge of some sort so the whole thing came to $35, saving us about $75 in grocery money. So who won? Who lost? I guess it's a draw but it did teach me being half right is worth fighting for.