Well, it's official - the "Going North!" segment of the Summer Road Trip is cursed. I just got a $50 parking ticket in Chicago. I'm trying to remain calm, imagining my recent problems as a white ball of healing light, but it's just not working.
The thing that really makes me mad is that I'm 90% sure I don't deserve the ticket. I was parked at a meter last night, but Bobby observtantly noted that after 8AM today I couldn't park there anymore. So at 8AM Bobby and I went outside and found some parking on his street. Hooray! Yipee! We felt so lucky that we had found the one open spot, and it was a beauty, as far as parking spots go - however, our elation was replaced by a sinking feeling when, at roughly 11AM, we noticed most of the other cars were gone from the side of the street on which we had parked. We went down and noticed a) the large orange ticket on my car b) a series of large orange temporary signs indicating that today, between 8AM and 3PM, the city would be doing street cleaning. First of all, street cleaning is so overrated. Secondly, I can't believe that we just didn't see any of those signs last night or this morning when we parked the car. I have a strong suspicion that the city put up the signs after I parked my car, and still gave me a ticket, which is so wrong. Then again, the government is also making up excuses for preemtive wars, destroying the economy, taking away civil rights, and letting middle to lower class soldiers die in a war that will profit the rich, so I guess in the greater scheme of things I'm only getting screwed over a tiny tiny bit.
Posted by Ben at July 31, 2003 12:23 PM