Saturday my girlfriend looked out the front window to see a police officer inspecting the hood of her car, like a biology student on a fieldtrip. But he was writing on a notepad that, regardless of his off-duty interests, looked an awful lot like it was full of blank parking tickets.

“But that’s impossible,” we said to each other, observing him from the front porch. “We just put a new parking permit on your dashboard last week.”

We live on a fairly quiet block, and most people have garages, so parking is never really terrible. But Luther Seminary is just down the street, and the U of M Saint Paul campus isn’t that far away, so every once in a while during the week the spots fill up. For that reason, our whole neighborhood is under a one-hour-parking-except-with-permit order. So, for ten dollars a year, we got permits, mostly because we can, but also because they permit zone extends all the way over to the university, so it comes in handy.

That said, I don’t think I’ve ever not been able to park on my block when I’ve needed to. Sometimes I don’t get the prized spot right in front of the house, and sometimes I have to park across the street, where parking is unregulated and I wouldn’t need a permit anyway. But for the most part the permit is a status symbol.

And it upheld its status as a symbol on Saturday, when it came to symbolize the stupidity of the permit-parking racket. By the time I finally (after about two seconds) got up the nerve to walk out and ask this cop (a “parking enforcement” cop, his car indicated in broadly-painted letters) what he was doing, there was really no doubt as to what he was doing. He was about to leave a fresh $30 ticket on my girlfriend’s car, despite her obvious compliance with the parking-permit ordinance.

I should have stormed out glaring and said, “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” This is, after all, my house, and I do, after all, pay a 50-some-dollar ‘curb’ fee every year. And she was parked right in front, in that prized spot of curb that I have diligently paid for. All these facts and some others were behind me, but he had a uniform and a Crown Vic; intimidation.

“Hi,” I said, in a nice, concerned voice, as if I had been the one who’d called him here.

“This your car?” he said, returning to filling out the ticket before I’d answered.

“Yeah… but it’s got a permit.”

“Did you read the instructions? You have to have it on the driver’s side. You’ve got it on the passenger side. I couldn’t see it.”

Ignore, for a moment, his rude refusal to let me explain that, no, of course I hadn’t read the instructions, it’s a parking permit, for the sake of Jesus; you put in on your dashboard, what instructions? Focus instead on this utter, incomprehensible incoherence: the permit that he COULDN’T SEE was on the passenger side, not the driver’s side, where it was required to be.
So what was he looking at when he examined the passenger’s side dashboard to note its lawlessly placed permit? Was it a ghost image of the offending 3×4-inch plastic card? Was it the aura of my girlfriend’s nefarious intention to misplace the permit?

IT WAS THE FREAKING PERMIT. Fool.

Add to that the undeniable fact that on this Saturday, as on most, the double-dead-ending stretch of Fulham Street on which I make my home was bare; the cars were outnumbered by open spaces like echoes in the Grand Canyon. What on earth was this “police officer” doing driving up and down an obscure street (come on Saint Paulites, I dare you to tell me where it is without MapQuesting it) giving tickets to people who had every right to park there?

Collecting revenue, that’s what. For the city. Which has already collected revenue off that same spot several times (I pay the damned curb-fee, and I pay property taxes). And what’s more, I was paying them to do it. I don’t know what cops make these days – maybe $20 an hour plus benefits. Whatever it is they deserve it. But not this guy; not with my tax dollars; not for roving around conning honest, reasonable people out of money they may not have time to fight for.

If I hadn’t walked out the door at that minute, my remaining option would have been to contest the ticket, which can only be done during business hours (i.e. I’d have to take off work) and usually takes at least an hour (lines, etc., I know, I’ve done it before). Meanwhile, all the clerks and janitors and receptionists are being paid – again with public money – to spend that time sorting out a bogus parking ticket that would’ve been ridiculous even if I hadn’t had the permit.

Sometimes the scale of government waste is just mind-boggling, especially when it shows up in a little red-striped envelope tucked under your windshield-wiper.

Ah, but a Crown Vic and a uniform (not to mention a firearm) will only intimidate so much. I worked up a steely glower and threw my eyes at his forehead:

“I’ll move it.”

And, with me in the car moving the parking permit that he couldn’t see to its appropriate location, it became somewhat silly for him to continue issuing punishment. He grumbled something meekly and hurried off to his car.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 14th, 2004 at 10:00 am and is filed under Minnesota, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.