Ticket-Happy

     I swear I think my town’s entire financial well-being must come from the money it generates from parking tickets.  I don’t know if there’s a grand prize giveaway to whoever gives out the most tickets or what, but it seems that the cops are more than just a little ticket-happy around here.  I can’t tell you how many tickets I’ve gotten just parked in front of my own damn house!  And when I got a “Final Notice” in the mail yesterday about a ticket I’d never even received, well, I about hit the fan.

     In most of the towns around me, you are required to have a special parking sticker displayed on your windshield in order to park on the street. These little suckers will set you back a whopping $80 a year. We are always very disciplined about purchasing our stickers & slapping them up on the windshield asap in order to avoid paying a ridiculously stupid fine.  And you most certainly will get busted, too, if you don’t keep those puppies current.  (We know this from firsthand experience.)  The little ticket guys honest to goodness go out in their little jeeps on the day the stickers expire and purposely look for cars that haven’t made the switch.  (As if they have nothing better to do with their time.)  

     Another senseless rule that is strictly enforced is the “No Parking” ordinance on leaf pick-up days in the fall.  In our town, everyone rakes their leaves into a big pile on the sides of the streets, and on certain days, the city sends around trucks to collect all the piles. Sounds all good and dandy, right?  It definitely is convenient, however, you have to figure out where to move your cars, because everyone has detached garages around here.  Most people can only fit one car (if they’re lucky) into their garages, so everyone is usually scrambling to find a spot in the alleys.  And if you forget to move your car off the street the night before a leaf pick-up day, look out! Those little ticket dudes are out in full force at the first crack of dawn to nail your ass, and there’s nothing worse than walking out of your own freaking house to find a $35 ticket sitting on your car.

     The winter months bring a whole other set of circumstances that force you to fork over even more money to the village government.   Since it tends to snow here pretty much non-stop for a good four or five months straight, we have to deal with the whole hassle of having to move our cars for the plows to clear the streets.  The bitch of it all is that one side of the street says you can’t park there if there’s more than two inches of snow, and the other side says you can’t park there during “winter precipitation events.”  What are “winter precipitation events” you ask?  Hell if I know, but according to the village, it basically means any kind of weather that’s not sunny.  Snow, sleet, even rain apparently constitutes “winter precipitation.”  One time last winter, it started snowing in the middle of the night, and we woke up to a big, fat ticket on our car.  When I called to complain, they said we were given the ticket for not moving our car for this so-called “winter precipitation event.”  Believe you me, I laid into this idiotic woman on the other end of the line.  I asked her if she honestly expected me to watch the weather forecast all throughout the overnight hours and then get up at the first sign of a snowflake to move my damn car.  Talk about a crock of shit!  After hearing an ear full from me, she finally told me she’d waive the ticket.

     So, yesterday, when I saw this letter from the village saying it was my final notice to pay this mysterious ticket that I’d supposedly been given back in June, I was pissed, to say the least.  It was the first I’d ever even heard about it!  I called the police department to find out what the ticket was even for, and the woman told me it was for parking my car with the left side against the curb, facing the wrong direction.  I suddenly had a flashback to a time during the summer when I went to pick my son up from a playdate and had quickly pulled up on the left side of the street.  I stood at the front door of this house for no more than three minutes and turned around to find one of the little ticket-writing a-holes walking over to my car.  I ran out to explain that I was leaving right then and there, and he agreed to not give me the ticket.  So, I explained this whole ordeal to the woman on the phone, and she said that the bastard had actually written and submitted the ticket even after he told me he wouldn’t!  She actually felt bad and said that he sometimes turns tickets in even if he’s agreed to dismiss them.  (Uh, I think maybe you might want to replace this idiot with someone who hasn’t completely lost their mind. Just a thought, though.) Luckily, the woman had mercy on me and relinquished the ticket, but if I wouldn’t have spoken up for myself, I would’ve been forced to hand over another $35 to the city once again.  

     If you ask me, it’s all a frickin’ money-making scheme.  I swear that some higher up political know-it-all is driving some sweet-ass car into his five-car garage in his ten bedroom mansion with all the money he’s collected from the unknowing saps that just go ahead and pay for unjustified parking tickets in our community.  It makes me sick.  We pay a crap ton of property taxes to live here that should seriously count for something.  But, since the situation unfortunately seems that it is what it is, I’ll just continue to be the squeaky wheel and try my best to stand up for my oil when I know that I’m in the right.

BOO!

     

     Every Halloween our neighborhood has a tradition of “BOO”ing people.  This is basically the same thing as “Ding Dong Ditch,” only with candy.  If you get “BOO”d, you’re supposed to tape a little paper ghost to your front door, so that people will know that your house has already been hit.  It’s then your responsibility to “BOO” two other houses on the block without getting caught.  Seems like an easy enough concept, but when you’re six, being inconspicuous is like sneaking an elephant into the movies. 

     My kids were so excited when we got “BOO”d the other night, and they couldn’t wait to “BOO” someone else.  So, last night, I promised them we’d go hit up some houses after dark.  We stuffed two bags with candy and set out with our flashlights. Most of the houses already had ghosts on their doors, so the pickins were pretty slim.  When we finally found a house that hadn’t been hit, we had fight off another little neighborhood girl for it.  She was armed with candy and ready to “BOO.”  However, I wanted to get the whole thing over with, so I whispered to my daughter to run.  I knew she could totally beat that chick up their front steps, and she proved me right once again.  When she got up to their porch, she lingered just a little too long after she rang the doorbell, and the dad came bounding through the door and caught her red-handed.  She was so bummed that she almost broke down in tears, but I quickly moved the process along by locating the only other house on our street that hadn’t been hit.

     I stood back and watched my two little prankster-wannabes creep up to the front porch and carefully place the bag of candy on the doorstep.  They rang the bell and ran like hell down the steps.  I thought for sure one of them was gonna bust their head open trying to remain unseen, but luckily no blood was shed.  My kids watched with excitement as the woman opened her door and took the bag of candy inside. Mission accomplished.  One down and one to go!  My kids were totally pumped up and ready to strike again.

     Since we’d run out of houses on our street, we decided to try their little friend who lives around the corner.  Apparently, they don’t “BOO” people on his street because none of the houses had ghosts on their doors, which turned out to be a real problem. My daughter decided to have a go at his house first.  She crept up the steps and immediately ducked down and called for me.  I guess the entire family was hanging out in the family room and could see the front porch as plain as day.  I told her just to go for it.  She rang the bell and ran like the wind down to meet my son and me in the bushes.  We could see the dad looking out the window, but then he disappeared.  My son then decided to take a stab at it.  The dad came to the window once again but still didn’t open the door.  I figured the third time would surely be a charm, so my daughter tried one more time.  

     We were nervously waiting in the bushes to see if they were ever going to answer the damn door, when we saw the whole family peering out the window to see who was out there in the darkness.  Then, suddenly the dad came around from the back of the house shouting over and over in a very angry voice, “Who’s there?!”  Oh shit!  I realized that if I didn’t say something, they were gonna call the cops on us.  I could just imagine the headline in the paper, “Nucking Futs Suburban Mom Arrested in Bushes for Voyeurism.”  I quickly stepped out of the bushes and identified myself to the dad, who ended up laughing hysterically at the whole turn of events.  He said he actually did contemplate calling the police.  Like I said, they don’t “BOO” on his street.

     I was so relieved to have the “BOO”ing behind us when we finally got home.  It’s a cute idea that the kids love, but it’s also a pain in the ass when you have two kids who don’t have a clue how to be sneaky.  The excitement factor’s definitely taken down a notch if you happen to get caught.  And it’s all fun and games till someone goes to jail.

Multiples of Three’s

     You know how they say bad things happen in three’s?  Well, in my house, they tend to happen in MULTIPLES of three’s!  It’s the whole snowball effect — everything breaks at once, goes wrong at once, or just sucks all at once.  

     In the past month, we have had our ice maker, sprinkler system, dryer, and oven all break one right after the other, as well as a rather large tear in the corner of our sofa cushion. And, anyone who has dealt with repair work knows what a huge pain in the ass it is to have to clear your whole day to wait around for these people to show up. And, wouldn’t you know that we just so happened to miss the warranty time period by a few weeks time with each and every one of these issues.  Translation:  we need to grow more money trees in the backyard.

     As if these things were not problematic enough, my husband was in a car accident on his way home from work last night.  He was supposed to be picking up the goods to make a Mexican dinner here, and I needed to add one more thing to the grocery list.  When I called him, he said he’d just been in a wreck and would call me back.  I had no details other than that he wasn’t hurt.  I sat on pins and needles waiting to hear back from him and having to dodge questions from the kids, because naturally, their little sponge-like ears picked up on our conversation.  The first thing my daughter asked was if Daddy was playing on his phone when he crashed his car.  I must say that she’s very intuitive because this is an issue I’ve bitched about to him many times over.  I, myself, have been guilty of texting while driving in the past, but I’ve tried to be better about it lately, especially after seeing some pretty disturbing results of the dangers of doing just this.  I’m constantly harping on my husband to lay off the phone business while in the car.  When he finally called me back, it turned out that he actually WASN’T using his phone, and some woman turned right in front of him at an intersection.  

    And, as usually is the case, the drama of the situation didn’t end there.  My husband told me that I’d have to pick him up at the police station!  He didn’t realize it, but his driver’s license had just expired a couple of weeks ago, and the insurance card in his wallet was also expired by a few days.  I guess it’s standard procedure that they had to take him in the back of the squad car to the station and have him bond out.  (And, by the way, I didn’t even know what that meant until last night.)  I decided to ask the teenage girls across the street to come over and stay with the kids.  I didn’t think dragging them along with me would be such a good thing.  I could just see them going to camp the next day and telling their counselors that they picked their daddy up at the police station last night.

     So, now, in addition to all the other crap for which we’ve had to shell out money lately, I’m sure we’ll have to pay some kind of deductible AND deal with the hassle of rental cars, insurance, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that no one was physically hurt — that is obviously THE most important thing.  But, why is it that it just had to happen on top of all the other freaking catastrophes? Did someone put a curse on our house or something?

     What types of domino effects have happened in your world?  How do you handle a big pile of problems all at once?  Maybe you know something I don’t know….

Road Block

     Last night I took the kids to visit a childhood friend of mine.  She lives way out in the country, and let’s just say that I’m not the best when it comes to directions.  I was very proud of myself to make it all the way there without any major glitches, but the return trip, however, was an entirely different story.  We didn’t leave her house until dark, and my eyes are not what they used to be after the sun goes down.

     My husband called my cell as soon as we left her house, which completely distracted me from my GPS system in the car.  After driving twenty minutes completely out of the way, I realized that absolutely NOTHING looked even remotely familiar to me, even in the dark.  I had to do a U-turn and backtrack until I was close to civilization again.  When we finally got close to my parents’ house, I came to a “road closed” sign less than five minutes from their neighborhood.  Now, I KNOW I have gone around these type of barricades at night in the past, without any type of consequences whatsoever.  This, however, was not to be my lucky night.  As soon as I got to the end of the road block and saw that I would have to completely turn around to get out of it, I noticed the red and blue flashing lights in my rearview mirror.  Awesome.

     My kids, of course, were thrilled at this turn of events.  A real, live sheriff was walking up to OUR car!  Lucky me!  I immediately apologized and tried to explain that I’m from out of town and didn’t realize that I couldn’t get through the road block.  I mean, I feel like I look like a pretty honest person, and, seriously, I had two kids in the back seat at 10:00 at night with OUT OF STATE license plates, for cripe’s sakes!  Unfortunately for me, though, he claimed that the neighbors have all been complaining about this very thing and that he would get in trouble if he didn’t give me the ticket.  No matter how much I tried to bat my eyes or look pathetic, he wasn’t budging.  He tried to give the kids some stupid sheriff’s badge stickers to make up for it.  They, nor I, were the least bit impressed.  How ’bout you take those stickers AND your stinkin’ ticket and shove them up your…ASSinine — the whole thing was just asinine. 

     So, my visit with my childhood friend didn’t exactly end on the best note.  I came home with a hell of a lot less gas in the car, two very sleepy kids, a very unfair ticket, and one pissed off attitude.  Not really what I’d had in mind when I’d set out to have a fun, relaxing evening, reminiscing about the good old days….