An Open Letter to the Meter Maids in My Neighborhood:I’m not saying you’re targeting my car. I imagine you’re ticketing every car in your prevue whenever you can, but it just seems like my vehicle gets ticketed while other offending cars right next to mine seem to consistently avoid the similar penalty. I know, it sounds like I’m whining and maybe I am, but it’s becoming more and more evident that you people must lie in wait to slap tickets on my windshield with great dexterity and incredible timing. You’re either super human or it’s a conspiracy.
I’m mad at the world, I guess, and meter maids in particular. But, that’s a knee jerk reaction, because everyone has to have a job. I realize that it’s not fair for me to be abusive toward you simply because you chose this particular career. I’ve actually studied it, and people who become parking meter attendants were probably tattlers in elementary school, ratted out all the smokers and stoners in high school, and have been teachers pets most of their lives. These are the same types of people who also become sports referees, cops and school principals. They will flock toward any career in which you can penalize other people for doing something perceived by society as wrong. Hey I know it’s not your fault. You’re just doing your job. Isn’t that what they said at Nuremberg? (Just kidding.)
I don’t want to start a war because you’ll win. But, I want you to know that within the last two months, I’ve received five parking tickets totaling $310—one for blocking the sidewalk in front of my house for a millisecond, while I ran inside to urinate, instead of relieving myself in my car or on the same sidewalk; two for parking on the wrong side of the street on a street sweeping day, confused by your first and third week policy and maybe sometimes or not sometimes on particular holidays (for instance, why do they observe Martin Luther King Day but not President’s Day?); one for not turning my wheels in the correct direction while parked on a hill; and the final for blocking a driveway by approximately 7-8 inches.
Maybe we can make the process a little easier? Mailing in all these checks is time consuming and a waste of paper and stamps. Can I send you, for example $500, so that you can put it on account? Maybe you can give me a break for paying in advance? Because with my admittedly sloppy parking habits and your uncanny vulture-like ability to nail me for even the most minor offenses within seconds of them occurring—I anticipate a substantial number of parking tickets in my immediate future.
Can’t we just get along?
