Add It Up

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Quarter to seven. Knock at the door. Polite young deputy, clipboard thick as a phone book.
Come on in, I got nothin' to hide!

Read me my rights on my own front porch, the coffee hadn't even perked,
Said, "Sir, I've got a list here," and the list ran past the dog, the barn, the dirt,
I said, "Son, there's some mistake, I'm the most law-abidin' man in town,"
He said, "Then you won't mind me readin' it," and he sat his clipboard down.

Count one, the drone, registered nowhere: up to three years.
Raffle tickets in the mail: up to two. Raffle tickets to Colorado: up to two.
That chip of dinosaur bone off the BLM: up to two more.
Chokecherry wine in the mail, a year! GMRS radios, a year!
Eagle feather, a year! The arrowhead, a year! The fawn by the stove, another year!

Add it up! (Add it up!)
Twenty-three and a half years if they max out every one,
A million and a half in fines, and, son, I ain't got none,
I had nothing to hide, and they found it all,
Add it up! (Add it up!)

Then six months each, he said, and he never even slowed:
The hawk feather, the mailman suit, the red cross on the box, the co-op mail run down the road,
The wasp spray, the trout at the tap, the day-use after ten, the canoe left at the lake,
The dog at the beach, ol' Buck past the sign, the bike in the wilderness, for Pete's sake,
The antler, the flower, the walkin' stick, the metal detector on the shore,
The heifer in the shed, the horse, no inspection, the football squares, the poster on the pole, there's more!
(Six months! Six months!)

Add it up! (Add it up!)
Twenty-three and a half years if they max out every one,
A million and a half in fines, and, son, I ain't got none,
I had nothing to hide, and they found it all,
Add it up! (Add it up!)

"Four more here for the kid," he said. I said, "Now hold on, that's my kid you're readin'!"
Lemonade stand, bike on the hikin' trail, skateboard in the lot, the robin's nest the kid was keepin',
"Six months apiece on the books," he said, "but those ain't yours to carry,"
I said, "Then leave 'em off the tab, son, the kid's already sorry."

Then the fines, just fines, no jail, he read 'em like a grocery list:
Five grand for the flyers, five grand for the census in the stove, seven-fifty for the curls I fixed,
Two hundred for the beer, for the hay, for the horn, for the brake,
Two hundred for the shoulder walk, and the Main Street crosswalk I didn't take!

I said, "How'd you even know? I never told a soul!"
He tapped the file: "Plate reader, mail scans, your phone, we never had to look, it was all on file."
I said, "But I had nothing to hide." He just grinned and shook his head:
"Nobody does, till somebody adds it up," is all he said.

Add it up! (Add it up!)
Twenty-three and a half years if they max out every one,
A million and a half in fines, and, son, I ain't got none,
I had nothing to hide, and they found it all,
Add it up! (Add it up!)

Twenty-three and a half years, Your Honor... any chance I could run 'em concurrent?
Add it up!

Sources

Satire. The song's totals stack every first-offense statutory maximum back to back; real sentences for counts like these are rarely maxed or run consecutively, and state and federal counts go to separate courts. The kid's four counts are read in the song but left out of the totals. Not legal advice.