parking tickets.

well, i arrived home last night to find a parking ticket on the drivers window of my car. awesome. now, there are times in the past when i've received a parking ticket or two that were totally fair. i'm thinking of a time in my youth when i was headed to a concert, was running totally late, and couldn't find parking anywhere, so i pulled into a metered spot. i put in as many quarters as i had, and was about ten minutes short of making it till nine pm when the meters ended. fine, i thought, i'll risk it. you know how this ends. i come out of the concert to find a ticket for 8:57 pm. ANNOYING AS ALL HELL, but fair.

last night...ugh. not fair.

as i've mentioned before, i recently moved, and i was unsure about the parking restrictions around the new apartment building. therefore, to avoid tickets i read EVERY sign EVERY time i get out of the car. seriously. i look like a frickin' tourist, but i don't care because i don't want to get a parking ticket! my favorite place to park (because it's actually not a thousand miles away) has two restrictions: you can't park there during events at the nearby stadium unless you have a resident permit, and no parking from october to april from 3-7 am for snow plowing. fine. i made sure to register my car with the city so i got a resident permit to take care of the first restriction, and the second one, well it's july, so if it snows, we're all in trouble.

well sometime between ten pm monday and eleven pm tuesday, they (the fuzz i guess, or whoever makes up these rules) installed another sign. no parking between four and six pm. what? fine, you want to change the restrictions and make my life harder (i buy a lot of stuff at target, ok? it's tough to always be walking a couple blocks with those bags. i'd much rather be able to park close to my house. just saying.) whatever. but it'd be helpful if they a: let us know they changed the restrictions, or b: had a grace period, or c: put a sign up saying "the restrictions will be changing here...etc., or d: DID NOT STEALTHILY PUT UP A SIGN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT THEN START PASSING OUT PARKING TICKETS TO UNKNOWING RESIDENTS LIKE THEY ARE FREAKING CANDY.

sixty bucks. SIXTY BUCKS.

look, i'm glad you're making parking restrictions because we all know there are douche-bags out there who would double park in front of fire hydrants just to be funny, but I CAN'T FOLLOW YOUR RULES IF I DON'T KNOW THEM.