I got another parking ticket today and I suspect sulphurous fumes issued from my mouth when I spoke to the young lady who so enjoyed writing it. I wished her a good day in as icy a tone as I could manage and took myself and my parking ticket to the police department to ask for an explanation, which was, as usual "I don't make the policy, I just enforce it." I seem to recall a number of nice German chaps who said similar things a few decades back... and it wasn't to do with collecting a $25-bloody-parking ticket! I was also told that I could either pay the ticket or appear for a hearing to appeal. WHAT?!
Just because the town government wants to push all the middle class people out by making the metered parking a dollar an hour and doing things like taking down all the "Free Parking" signs when college starts just so the students can't park on the main street and *gasp* take up the spaces potential customers might use should they choose to patronize the lovely establishments thereon, and by sending around bovine meter maids to collect yet more money doesn't mean it's right and good. I repeat what I said when I got my first parking ticket: Just because no one questions it? Doesn't make it right. We're not sheep, you know.
I wasn't rude. I was calm. I was bloody well furious that I parked in front of someone's--the person I happened to be visiting, thank you--house and was there for half an hour to drop off some tomato seeds and have a cup of tea before I went grocery shopping and--horror of horrors--because I didn't have a bloody guest tag on my rear view mirror, I'm slapped with a $25 parking ticket. Yes, those of you who live in big cities probably shriek with laughter at the thought of a $25 ticket being outrageous compared to the $100+ tickets that do exist, but the small town universe I live in is a different animal. Allow me to add, too, that parking tickets less than a decade ago cost a mere $6 on the college campus; they later rose to $11. Did anyone complain? No. They paid their cotton pickin' parkin' tickets and went on their merry way. And here we are with $25 parking tickets.
Bleh. Okay. Rant is now finished.
5 comments:
That is so awful! I suppose I've probably asked this before, but is anyone doing a petition or anything? Or a voters' referendum? Surely, more people who live in your area would like to see such things go away...
I hope people aren't just rolling over on this! It's the way the town is changing now, and there's not much people like us can do about it. The game and its rules have changed, too, which makes it worse.
We did the General Cornwallis routine today and took some flowers to the police department as a way of saying, "I acknowledge that you've defeated me, but I don't have to accept it." I somehow guess the irony was lost on them.
I gues it would have been lost on them... *sighs*
Yeah. It's just... bleh. Mom's talking about moving now because she's so tired of the way things are going here. I would say it's small towns, but I don't know that all small towns are like this. I sure hope not...
Hmmm, that's a difficult thing. I would think they aren't all like that... Although, I'm sure everywhere, big or small, has it's drawbacks.
Land is still going for fairly cheap in Henry County, VA right now, I can tell you that. And, of course, they say God lives in Floyd, VA it's so beautiful there (http://www.fragmentsfromfloyd.com/ , http://www.floydvirginia.com/)... Though I myself have never been there, only heard from others and seen in pictures...
Post a Comment