Parking Patrol

Recently upon returning from a lovely morning at the Portland Children's Museum I found a ticket for $24 because my tires were slightly over one of the two lines to my right in my miniscule parking space at the Sunset Transit Center.  This is for the jackhole that I saw lurking in the parking patrol car about 10 spaces away from me:


I was actually puzzled why you would ticket me, asshole, because you watched me park my minivan as you sat there in your car salivating over the 50% commission you'll no doubt receive for ticketing vehicles in the parking garage.

Could you not have wandered over and said something like, oh I don't know, "Did you know, miss, that if you park over the line I can write you a ticket for $24?" Instead you sat there watching me, no doubt with a giant hard-on, waiting for me to leave so you could take a picture of my car and write the ticket.

And it was highly interesting that you, in your official vehicle, were blocking the way so you could ticket all 10 cars that were there at 9:45 am. There were about five cars parked on the main level leaving plenty of open space, including the two on either side of MY car, that you could have parked your vehicle in.

But then again, you were in an SUV, and you must know how freaking impossible it is to park in those miniscule spaces that are designed to hold only a Toyota Prius or a Mini Cooper. So instead you sat in the car with your pants down watching me take my two small children to the train, just waiting for the opportunity to test our your fancy new digital camera to get proof of my infraction with the Mission Impossible music playing in your head.

And to be honest, it never occurred to me to check to make sure I wasn't over the line because I run out of fingers counting the number of times I have driven to the Sunset Park & Ride and not been able to park in the dozen or so empty spaces left because several other people with cars that are normal sized can't park in those little tiny spaces thus rendering it impossible for us to park either of our two vehicles.

Oddly enough I don't remember EVER seeing tickets on the windshields of THOSE vehicles no doubt because you'd get writers cramp on those days, assuming again that your hand has been busy doing other things to yourself while you wait for them all to leave, as I believe you were doing today.

If you really want to raise revenue for public transportation try actually CHECKING on people to ensure that they have paid their fare or have their pass. I've ridden the train dozens of time, and paid my fare EVERY TIME. I cannot say that for other folks. I've probably paid for that one ticket several times over. OR you should go write tickets on a thursday at 11am when the lot is FULL, or ANY OTHER day other than Sunday.

So perhaps maybe I'll just pollute the atmosphere and clog our congested roads for the next 6 times I plan to use the train instead, you know, so I can cover the cost of this ridiculous ticket.

Peace out.