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.
Brian Alvey 