Did you know that in Arlington, VA you can still get a parking ticket even if you’re physically unable to reach the parking pay booth-thing due to a small glacier having swallowed it?
No, I didn’t get a ticket. But in my 45 minute quest to find street parking I witnessed lovely Rita wandering the avenue with ticket book in hand trying to extract more fines from put upon parkers. (I spit on my screen just typing that.) For those people not in the region, the Washington DC Metro area (aka The 9th Circle of Hell) received about a bazillion inches of snow last week. OK, it was closer to 35-36 inches, but around here it may as well have been a bazillion. (Bazillion: A million gwadzillion) The temperature has tap danced around 32 degrees ever since… sometimes falling off the stage and landing in the orchestra pit of the upper teen temperature range. I needed to go to the bank today and even though I only needed to run in and run out, I opted not to do the “DC thing” and just leave my car in the street. I stopped in a two hour parking space and then stared blankly at a mountain of snow. Somewhere inside the mountain was a coin slot. If I could find the coin slot and deposit a bit of her majesty’s bling bling I’d be saved from Rita at the end of the row. I couldn’t find it.
I stuck a quarter under my windshield wiper and went to the bank.
When I got back 4 minutes later, there was round Rita next to my car. The quarter was gone. The quarter should have bought me 15 minutes of asphault so I didn’t feel concerned. At least until Rita told me that I could be ticketed for attempting to bribe a county official. I didn’t know where to start in on the looney logic that she burped out at me like left over chili vapor. County official? Official what? Officially taking herself too seriously I thought. And a bribe? It was a quarter. It might not have even been an American quarter. I just reached in the cup holder and grabbed for round metal. It could have been a Chuck E. Cheese token for all I knew.
She stood there smiling glibbly. I don’t know why. She was actingly she’d just caught Al Capone red handed. I asked her where my quarter was. She looked confused and left.
I’m really not sure if I was harassed or not. Maybe she was bored and was messing with me. Maybe not.
On the way back from the bank I watched some lady in a large SUV attempt to park her car. She failed and in the process cracked the bumper of a parked truck behind her. It made a loud snap sound and she clearly knew she’d done bad and began pulling away in order to flee. Happily for me, I was blocking her escape while sitting at a red light. I took a picture of her license plate and then one of her before I left. She was not pleased. I went back and left a note on the truck with the information the driver would want when he noticed his truck was broken. (She did flee as soon as I moved my car.) I forwarded the pictures to the police. Just for fun.
The moral of the story is… don’t bribe meter maids with loose change.
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