On Parking Tickets
Let me paint you a picture, as I so often like to do: you wake up, on the right side of the bed for once! The neighbors weren’t doing construction, the gardeners weren’t using their leaf blowers, and the rooster that lives next door must have slept in today because that infernal cock-a-doodle-doo-ing that has become the sound of your nightmares hasn’t started yet. You have your coffee or your tea or whatever morning drink you prefer and the first sip you take is the ideal temperature. Your morning routine isn’t rushed and you get everything you want done before you step out the door. Finally, it’s time to head out and the weather is perfect, you even have a spring in your step. You walk out to the street…and then you see it. That little white envelope, sticking out, almost mockingly, from under your windshield wiper. “No, no, no. Come on, please,” you beg as you quicken your stride…but despite your pleas, the envelope is just as you had feared: a parking ticket. Suddenly, an atomic bomb of bad vibes has been dropped on your day.
Parking tickets are one of my least favorite parts of owning a car, right up there with traffic, repair costs, registration costs, gas prices, car washes, looking for parking, having to drive when you’re tired, getting dings and scratches, and the destruction of the environment, just to name a few. But seriously, getting a parking ticket is like stubbing your toe really badly, except the toe is your wallet, and the coffee table you just kicked is the most confusing parking sign you’ve ever seen.
Sometimes it’s late at night and you just want to find a spot so you can go to bed. Sometimes it’s early in the morning and you’re barely awake but you think you’ve lucked into a good spot. Sometimes you think you read the sign right but it’s actually Thursday and not Friday and then you end up feeling like a complete fucking idiot because no matter what the reason for the mistake…it’s gonna cost you like $75.
The cost of a parking ticket being between $50 and $80 just feels like such a “fuck you” from the parking cops. It’s not enough that it’s going to break the bank for most people, but it’s also definitely not nothing. That’s a date that you were going to take your loved one on. That’s a concert you were maybe going to buy tickets for. It’s just enough cash that it feels really bad but it isn’t really REALLY bad.
I get it, parking laws are important, how else are you going to get street sweepers through, or do construction on the roads we so often complain about, I really do get it. But GOD DAMN does getting a parking ticket piss me off.
So, what about you? Does getting a parking ticket make you feel like a volcano of rage, or are you some kind of saint?
There are times I've knowingly parked someplace I shouldn't because I had to get to some appointment and there just wasn't any other option. Then it's like a non-lethal form of Russian Roulette. I spin the chamber and take my chances. Sometimes I win and feel like one of God's chosen. Other times, there's that little envelope and I try to accept the bullet with grace. But yes, there have been times when I have been wronged by the deep state. Or deep city. Once, in Pasadena, I came back to my car to see a ticket on it while, according to my app, I still had like, six minutes. I took a picture of the ticket, a picture of my app, wrote the kind of articulate and well-reasoned statement that only someone who'd gone to law school for three weeks could write, and sent it in, confident I'd be exonerated. I wasn't. Can't remember the bogus reason they gave me. Thought about appealing to the Supreme Court, but with the new conservative lineup I figured they'd take one look at my earring and toss the case, so I gave up. Just thinking about it raises my blood pressure.
Sometimes I can be pretty chill about parking tickets, but last week I WAS NOT CHILL