My Expensive Morning

This past weekend, as with most weekends, I crashed at a house shared by 4 of my buddies. We party and hang out and have a good time. When there I've been parking in roughly the same spot for the past 4 or 5 months. So I was more than a little surprised to find my car, and many of my friends cars, ticketed on Sunday morning. Surprised, pissed, whatever you want to call it. Anyway, my buddy said a cop was out ticketing so I went to take a look and sure enough I was too late; there on my windshield was a little orange envelope. This wasn't the first time I'd been ticketed for parking in the "wrong" area of the little city, so I knew what to expect. In the past I've received tickets ranging from $10-15. It's annoying, but ultimately quite minor. So I knew what I was in for, that is, right up until I actually removed the envelope from under my wiper.

The $10 ticket I had received for parking on a Residents Only street turned out to be $45.
After months of parking there, one of the neighbors had actually called the police because so many non-residents had parked on their street. Contrary to what you may be thinking, I didn't make this discovery at noon or 1 o' clock. I pulled the ticket from my car at around 9am. In defense of the jerkoff who called the cops, I was technically parked illegally, as were the others who received tickets. However, it was still early and even with all of our cars parked where they were there was plenty of parking left on the street. If they'd waited about an hour or so, all but two of us would have been gone. I know that Sunday is the day of rest, but if you have nothing better to do than wake up to call the police about a few college kid's cars on your street where they shouldn't be, put yourself out of everyone else's misery. That's a dick move, because it just doesn't matter. Did they need the empty spaces to accommodate the people who weren't coming over to visit them?

This kind of thing always bothers me, because it costs me money for nothing. For those who have never visited Burlington, Vermont, there is enough parking for approximately 1/3rd of the population. So, yeah, people park in Resident Only parking. Why? Because they have to park somewhere without walking a mile to get to their destination. Call me crazy, but I think we should all have that right. $45 is quite a bit if you're broke. How much did the city make off of our inconvenience? Well I believe 8 of us were ticketed, so that's $360. Not bad for about 10 minutes of work for a single officer, especially considering the "crime" didn't actually affect anyone negatively.

I'm pissed for reasons previously stated, and I was hoping some people might be able to share some sympathy. It's a ridiculously stupid way to spend $45 when I need a pair of pants or a tank of gas or maybe even some food. God forbid I spend my money on something I need when I have the audacity to park innocently in front of someone's home while both of their cars are in their driveway. Aside from a bit of therapeutic venting, I suppose this post doesn't have much in the way of a point. But if, per chance, you see someone doing something which bothers you for any reason...take a moment to decide whether it's really doing you any harm. Hell, maybe even try to put yourself in their place to understand the motivations for their annoying behavior. If you're an angry, middle-aged man who lives off of East Ave in Burlington, maybe that just means remembering what it's like to be young again, having fun with your friends.