Parking Tickets

I got a parking ticket today.  It kinda sucks, but I get parking tickets ALL the time when I park in the city.  It's not that I don't know that I'm parking illegally, its just that I don't care.  Plus I think this City could use the extra revenue..haha!  Its not like I'm parking with half my car up on a curb or blocking fire hydrants and driveways, it is very menial parking violations.  I sometimes park in areas with strict meter enforcement, I don't feed it enough, and it expires.  That happens a lot outside of my building at work and it has happened a few times when meetings ran long downtown.  That really is the only time I get parking tickets, come to think of it - for expired meters.  But I let those bitches run dry quite often. 

Today my ticket was for parking on a street that had a sign about 10 cars down that read "No Parking, 2nd Wednesday of Month, 8am - Noon."  Okay, so it didn't actually read "No Parking," it had a 'P' in a circle and a line through it, but you all get what I mean.  I didn't see the sign at first when I was parking.  It wasn't until I got out of my car and saw all of the tickets already on other cars that I noticed the sign.  It was a little after 11:15am and all these cars already had been ticketed, so I said "Fuck it" (literally).  By the way, I was in the Central West End taking some photos for work which is why I left my car on the street today.  Well, the batteries died in my camera so I had to go back to the car to get some fresh ones...  This was only about 15 minutes into my visit, so I was still technically parked illegally.  When I get back there, I didn't have a ticket, so with only about a half an hour until parking was legal again and with no 'meter maid' in sight, I decided I would be fine and left my car there. 

Well I'll be dammed if when I returned to my car at about 12:15pm I didn't have a ticket.  The little piece of paper with the green bordering and its accompanying envelope were sitting there stuffed under my passenger-side windshield wiper.  It almost appeared as if they were laughing at me - mocking me for my lackadaisical attitude toward St. Louis City's parking regulations and its tenaciously annoying enforcement.  Also, the time stamp was 11:39am on the ticket, so not only did I just miss the little bastards, but they were issuing tickets 21 minutes before the sign expired...  Wow!  These people must really be proud of the way their lives turned out.  I couldn't think of any better satisfaction than landing an ignorant little 10$ ticket on an unsuspecting person's windshield when all they're trying to do is be productive and efficient with their work day.  I'm being sarcastic.  I guess I can flip that script and say I can't be angry with them because all they are trying to do is the exact same thing, so I'll just let it go...  still frustrating though.  You'd think after as many tickets as I've gotten and how often I continue to shake off the fines, that I wouldn't bitch to the extreme of posting on my blog.  Then again, if I didn't vent here, then I'd have nothing else for you guys to read today ;).

One last thing.  I was driving home from a meeting at the MO Botanical Garden last night and stumbled upon a car that had like 90 tickets on its windshield.  I think the coincidence of my ticket today is uncanny, but aside from that, this car just looked ridiculous with all those tickets... I mean, at what point does the City just decide to go ahead and tow it?  I was able to grab a photograph (I had to stop and back up in the street, so its not the best angle), so I thought I'd share it in this article... my apologies if it doesn't post.