Parking Ticket | The Habitation of Justice

Merry Christmas, Here’s Your Ticket

Lincoln Adams | December 20, 2009 @ 6:12 pm

Recently New York had just been ranked for being the unhappiest state in the country. My experience today could certainly tell you why.

Since I live in an apartment complex that assigns one parking space per apartment, it’s only natural that we would have an overflow of cars, most of which have no choice but to park on the side streets. When I first moved here they originally gave me trouble over that, until I went down to town hall and explained my situation. Since they knew who I was (it helps to have a long, sordid history of troublemaking with the government) they ripped up the ticket for me and sent me on my way.

Today though was a slightly different story. I’m out shoveling three cars, the sidewalk and God only knows what else for half the residents here, when I see a code enforcement car slowly moving down the street. He was actually getting out and writing tickets for each car that was parked on the street, all of which belonged to the neighbors. What the…

My car was the last in line since it was parked near the curb, so I had time to go up to the old looking douchebag and start a friendly conversation. Since we lived near a train station, the side streets here could not be used for more than 2 hours parking normally, but they tend to make unofficial exceptions for awesome people like me who have to live in this dumpy neighborhood.

“Hey there, are you writing tickets? Because all these cars belong to residents here.”

“You can’t park here. We have a snow emergency and all cars must be off the street to allow plowing.”

“Really, I wasn’t informed of this.”

“All residents were notified. Please move your car or you will be ticketed.”

“Well that’s obviously not true, since I wasn’t notified. Didn’t get a phone call, mail or anything. Not even a Twitter.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help you. You will have to park your vehicle elsewhere.”

“Dude, there IS no other place to park. Where are people supposed to park their cars now, up their asses?”

“Please do not cause trouble sir, or your car will be towed and the authorities will be contacted.”

“I AM the authorities, numbnut.” I showed him my ID.

He paused at this.

“…there must be some other place for you to park?”

Oh, so NOW we’re gonna be nice about this? :eyeroll:

We exchanged a few more words, until finally I opted to move my car and park it, (illegally if you can believe it) in front of a dumpster next to my apartment. The code enforcement dweeb continued to ticket cars, although by this time more people had come out to see what the commotion was about. Before I knew it lots of angry people with heavy shovels had now surrounded the code enforcement guy Heh.

So apparently, the schmuckheads running town hall had issued a snow emergency requiring all vehicles that were along emergency routes to be off the streets, except that evidently, none of us got this notice. Everyone else I spoke to didn’t get a single notice, so to me it would have made much more sense to leave a warning notice on each car, instead of handing out $50 parking tickets like a transit cop drunk on power. But that would have made too much sense. And besides, what liberal scumbag wouldn’t resist a mad grab for more revenues in the midst of a snow storm?

I can’t get out of this state fast enough.

Tags: apartment, cars, code, code enforcement, government, neighbor, neighborhood, neighbors, parked, parking, parking ticket, side streets, snow emergency, snow storm, storm, street, town hall
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log

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A Rash of Things to Come

Lincoln Adams | November 5, 2009 @ 6:35 pm

Or more specifically, poison ivy rashes, which I somehow got from geocaching in the woods of Pennsylvania. The irony of this? These “woods” were actually right next to a Walmart parking lot, making me think it would be an easy find. Instead I stepped into a batch of poison ivy, resulting in my leaving the state covered in itchy rashes and misery. I guess this is what I get for rooting for the Yankees in Phillies land. Oh, and also for shopping at Walmart (I realized too late there was a Target nearby all along that I could have stopped at instead. Sigh.) I won’t be making THAT mistake again. Then I come home to find a letter from the town court containing the fine amount due after I got ticketed by state police on my last vacation.

$150?!??! FOR A PARKING TICKET??? SON OF A___ YEEEEEEEARRFRBVGHHGh… :rant:

Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be driving through that town again. Dillweeds.

I certainly seem to get a run of bad luck every time I put myself out there and try to enjoy life. If I just did my usual thing, instead of going out there and enduring all this misery, I could be safe at home, hiding under my bed while playing Nancy Drew games on my laptop and sipping hot cocoa. At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about getting pulled over by cops, or rolling in poison ivy, or getting mowed down by crazy drivers in the city, or wearing out an aging SUV that just cost me $1500 to fix up.

But then again, I wouldn’t have had beautiful women somehow find their way into my hotel room three times in a row either. Two that brought me room service, and one that helped get my fireplace going. :naughty: Nor would I have enjoyed some of the beautiful scenery I came across either in my travels.

It occurred to me then that hiding under my bed and surfing eHarmony is probably not the best way to meet or find a nice girl. Besides, I was missing out on life, and even with all the dangers out there, the rewards often trump the risks.

So despite my itching all over as I type this post, I’m determined to continue living the life I’ve always wanted to live, to go places I’ve never been to before, to explore the world and meet new people, and maybe somewhere in all that I’ll someday meet my dream girl too.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put some ointment on and scream for a little while…

Tags: geocaching, life, parking ticket, Pennsylvania, poison ivy, police, risks, travel, travels, vacation, walmart, women
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log

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Park This

Lincoln Adams | August 29, 2006 @ 8:33 pm

I live on an apartment complex that assigns you one parking space per unit (which makes perfect sense since everybody and their mother around here owns at least two cars). Additionally, the town in its eternal wisdom has decreed that no car can be parked on any of the streets adjacent to the apartment complex for more than 4 hours. “F”-ing brilliant. Quite naturally as a result, parking has become a bit of an issue. When I first moved here, I figured I could pull a fast one when parking on the side streets by putting a police decal on my dashboard, indicating that I was on “official police business.” Since that’s what I actually use my car for when I’m working, it wasn’t really that far off the mark. :grin:

Nope, they ticketed my horse anyway. So much for camaraderie, fricking uptight code enforcement dweebs.

The funny thing however was that I managed to get the ticket torn up anyway, due to a long lost friend of mine working inside town hall. She had been my commanding officer back in the days when I was a reserve cop, and by sheer luck she was now working code enforcement. I found out months later that I wouldn’t be ticketed in the future, so long as they knew I was a resident of the area (kind of an unwritten rule they follow to cut residents some slack).

Before I found out about that though, there were times I parked my ride in front the dumpster used by the complex, along with three other cars that did the same thing. I really couldn’t blame them, because there simply was no other place to park, and I figured since they were doing it, no harm in me doing it too.

Nope. I got a letter from the landlord flatly stating how it has come to his attention that certain tenants (read: me) were illegally parking in front of the dumpster, and that if this continued, the cars (read: MY car) would be towed.

So I stopped parking there, though evidently I was the only one who got the memo because the other cars stayed right where they were. In fact another car now occupies the same spot I usually took in front of the dumpster. After asking around, it appears I really WAS the only one who got the letter. Hmmmm. So much for equal treatment.

To add insult to injury, when I’m parking on the side streets, one of the newer tenants has this habit of parking thisfrickingclose to my rear, even though there’s never anybody behind her, and there are always plenty of other spaces on the street where she could park much closer to her unit. This I don’t get, I mean if it were me, I think I’d park my ride a little bit closer than that, and definitely where I could actually see it from my apartment, right?

Today was different though. The car was parked in the same spot as always, except it was missing a few things. 4 tires to be exact. And the rims.

Whoever did it not only left the bolts but the jack behind as well. It was almost comical, but a little weird. For one, why was the car parked 2 feet from the curb, which inadvertently made it much easier for the thieves to jack and boost the tires from that side? And why leave the jack behind? :unsure: The whole thing about it makes me suspect an insurance scam, especially since she didn’t seem overly upset about it when the police came knocking. I would have gone ape, but I guess that’s just me. I guess I’ll know for sure that something was up if she gets new tires, and then ends up parking in the exact same spot as usual.