Gawdalmighty. Hiram parking tickets. Melinda and I both have choice parking ticket memories. My senior year, after I finally got a car and kept it on campus permanently, I decided there was no way in hell I was paying $25 for a parking permit for the privilege of parking in the lot behind B-C given the fact that you had to look death square in the eyeballs every time you walked down that hill because it was always coated in ice, and given the fact that there was never a place to park, and given the fact that there were potholes that could swallow entire nations and patches of mud that turned any would-be grocery store expedition into the filth equivalent of a monster truck rally. So every once in awhile, Physical Plant would send their vampiric goons around during the wee hours to look for cars that didn't have permits. And I got like 12 tickets demanding a $25 fee and threatening to jeopardize my continuing higher education if I didn't pay up. I never paid. They gave me my diploma. And we still managed to steal those benches back from the fuckers. Yay, Paul.
I think I only had my car towed by the Hiram PD once for having like 6 unpaid parking tickets when I forgot to move my car from the street to the DeathLot.
So in Shaker Heights, they have this law that you can't park your car on the street between like 2 and 6 a.m., and it's all very heavily enforced because apparently, in Shaker, street parking is tacky and contradictory to the city's supposed image of goodness and diversity and lack of crime. What I found the most hysterical was the day we got a postcard in our mailbox from the Shaker PD. It said, "We noticed while on patrol that you've been leaving your garage door open. In our experience in law enforcement, this situation can invite a criminal situation." I almost split in half laughing. We don't ever close the garage door. First of all, if we did, the racoons who live in the eves of the garage would be extremely pissed off to be without their garagedoor foothold in the ceiling. Second of all, our garage currently contains the following: Zack's non-working mid-80s Chevy Celebrity; a seat from Steve's former van; a bunch of tires that don't seem to belong to anyone; the business end of a 12-cup coffeemaker; one broken wicker chair; one broken computer chair; the storm door the landlord bought to install on our front door that he's never actually installed; hunks of wood in varying lengths and colors; an old ferret cage that Zack's stepfather ran over with his car.
posted by Kate at 10:30 AM link/comments
