I was picking up my dinner two nights ago and instead of taking the long way around the block and parking on the side street, I spied a meter space on the corner and pulled in. Dinner wasn't ready yet, so I had some hot tea and waited for them to finish up. Returning to my car, I saw a big man doing something strange to my car and my first guess was that he was putting a flyer on my windshield. As I got closer, I saw that he was probably ticketing me.
"Are you giving me a ticket?"
He looked up at me startled and backed onto the curb mumbling. I couldn't make out his answer, so I asked him again. He said he was giving me a ticket, but he was clearly surprised to see me there and must have thought that I was going to flip out and attack him.
I asked him how late the meters ran here. He said 8. It was 7:30, but it was darker than most midnights. I told him that it was so dark, I didn't even think about it. I was just going to stand there while he ticketed me, but he motioned for me to get in my car and started giving the car in front of mine a ticket.
I rolled down my passenger window and thanked him on my way by. I'm really pretty calm about tickets. You only get them when you deserve them. There's a rule. You broke it. You get a ticket.
It's other drivers that make me go nuts, not meter attendants.
GrimJack
EZ Street
Jon Sable, Freelance
Comments (5)
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michael 2523 days ago
you did well in this situation. I've tried, in the past, not to go berserk on parking people. It's hard not to though.
Sean Carter 2537 days ago
I lived in Hollywood for a year, pursuing acting and fine art. One night some coworkers and I went to Barney's beanery. When we left I walked ahead to the car as my driver was talking to a friend of his. I got up to the car and saw some lady giving him a ticket. I called him, to no avail, on his cell phone. He finally caught up and was surprised at what was happening. I forgot why, but we didn't notice we couldn't park there. I thought I could smooth talk her out of giving us a ticket. She wasn't having it. Finally I called her mean and told her that Karma would catch up to her, I was drunk in my defense. She was so frustrated from our conversation she finally told us to leave.
My only thing was that it's not like she gets a commission off of them, do they? We need to help each other out, not put more burdens on each other.
Bob Trotta 2536 days ago
Your actions are to be commended. I know loads of people who would just get angry about it, and they probably would have got a ticket. Maybe it's something to do with Karma.
Joe 2525 days ago
Recently I had driven downtown Detroit to the hospital to pick my aunt up and was merely waiting in a parking space for her to call me to pull up front when an unmarked car pulled in behind. I noticed the car, but thought nothing of it seeing how it did not have any flashers or writing on the car to identify it. Also, my spot was one of about 11 other empty spots available. Well as you can guess the car pulls up next to me, someone gets out of the shotgun seat, again unmarked, and being nice, I did not stare at the person fearing to be rude. The person is wearing jeans and a black coat. Still not to think they have authority. This persons puts what I thought was a flyer on my car, but no, it was a ticket. And by the time I had begun to open my car door to inspect which took about 2 seconds, the person had slammed his door and the driver took off. I was left astonished. All I am asking is for meter maids to have a heart and when someone is not clearly trying to break the law, tap on the window and ask them politely to move. I would have, I was just standing in a parking spot waiting for my aunt who cannot walk too well to get out of the hospital. I feel that meter maids are cowards and sneak around to avoid human contact in fear of actually having to interact. Now the cost of the ticket was not a big deal, but wouldn't it of made everyone happier if they would have just tapped on my window.
Eyebee 2539 days ago
The meter attendants make me go nuts when you've violated the rule by jsut a minute or two, and they play 'jobsworth'