Act I
12:15 p.m., January 27th. It’s been two days since our biggest snowstorm in over 20 years. Even with snow piled up where parking used to be, I manage to find a spot, right in front of Bayview Vision, where I have an eye exam at 12:30. Parking karma. It’s going to be a good day.
I punch in Green P’s requisite Bayview east parking code, 6412, and give myself a generous 90 minutes of parking allotment.
I head inside and in short order, I’m put through my ocular paces. After a stop at the giant View-Master thingy, I head upstairs to have the eye doctor dilate my pupils and stare into my looking balls and search for signs of macular degeneration.
Act II
After my eyes return to “normal” and with my new glasses on order, I walk out to my car — all well within my 90 minutes. But there it is, on my windshield – the unmistakable flapping of yellow despair. I snatch the ticket from under my wiper, partly out of frustration and partly to proclaim my innocence with a public show of exaggerated indignation. I check the parking app on my phone. Nope, far from expired. I look at the parking sign. No time violations. I check for a fire hydrant. None. I check the ticket. My eyes have no trouble reading the small print in this case: $100! Are you kidding? Scribbled at the bottom are the words “Parked in emergency snow route.” There are no signs, no snowplows. Not even tickets on other cars. So, why me? Who’s out to get me!? (Sure, some may call me paranoid, but as I say, “just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean I’m not being followed.”)
I’m irked. Beyond irked. Super-irked. The ticket is like a bothersome stone in my shoe, irritating me just when I think I’d moved on. These thoughts compel me to drive back to the scene a few hours later to see if I misread the signs. It was then that I notice a Parking Enforcement Officer in front of Bayview Vision. Bingo! Finally, I’ll get to the bottom of this.
“Excuse me…not to be a pain, but can I ask you why I got a ticket? I still had time left on my app. It makes no sense.”
Thankfully, the officer indulges my whining. “I know, you’re not the only one…last night at 6 p.m., the mayor announced certain roads as emergency snow routes. This side of Bayview is one of them.”
“But how are we supposed to know that?” I ask.
“I know, they’re not prepared. There should be orange signs in the snowbanks, a warning on the parking app, and the parking machine shouldn’t work. Just fight it.”
“I guess, but I gotta ask, why hand out tickets if all this is the case?”
“We were told to. I know, I know,” she empathizes, seeing my eyes grow wide in disbelief.
“Jeez, thanks, Mayor Chow,” I say to the officer.
“Take photos of the area, your parking receipt, and fight it online.”
Act III
I can only imagine that City Hall is counting on most people paying the fine. I decide I’m not one of them. Around midnight, that evening, I log onto the city’s online parking ticket dispute portal, jump through a few bad web design hoops and get to the page where I can state my case and post my “evidence.”
Three hours later and using 2,126 of my 3,000-word rant limit, my irk is finally subsiding. I put my reading glasses down and rub my eyes. I feel a sense of relief but also a little ridiculous; all this over a hundred bucks. But it’s the PRINCIPLE, I tell myself. I click “submit” and the screen disappears. Wait…I put my glasses on. My heart sinks. It’s just another design flaw of the site, I tell myself. Then I realize I did not hit “submit” but mistakenly closed the tab I’m working in. No! Breathe. Remain calm. I find the page in my browsing history. It will still be there. Please, please, please be there. Not there. NOT THERE? Three hours of rant…gone. Poof. Do I pay or re-rant?
