My mother works in a downtown bank where parking is expensive. I work near enough that I can drive her and save the expense, but I get there earlier than she was done, so I sit in the parking lot in a customer spot. I have an account with the bank and there is never a shortage of spaces. The lot also has contract parking. Most of them are empty by 4:30.

At 4:35, one day, a person comes in, parks in a contract spot, and walks next door to the gym. (Oh, yeah, irony not lost). As I am invisible from the angle of my windshield, they don’t see me. I go in and mention the fact to the receptionist and then return to my car and my book. A member of the police department foot patrol comes by and slips a notice under the wiper of the car in the contract spot.

At 5:30, the owner leaves the gym and sees the notice, tosses it, and leaves.

The next day, the same person returns and does the same thing. The police now give a ticket. The owner tosses THAT and leaves. On the third day, the police officer waits for a tow truck.

The owner returns to find their car missing and tries to get into the bank. No luck as it closed at five. (Offices are open until six.) I see them walk away.

Mom comes out after her day and tells me how this owner called the bank ranting and raving. They were informed that the towing was done under a city contract and that the car was likely towed as it had no permit. “But it was only thirty minutes!” the owner screeched. “Not according to our lot attendant,” they were told. More screeching.

Three days later, after the weekend, the car is back. The owner makes a point of looking around for the “lot attendant”. I happen to notice this from the skyway across the lot as I am returning from getting my after-work potato cakes (curse you, crinkle cuts). I go straight to the receptionist instead of going to the car first. All six employees still on duty at 5:30 and I watch the car owner now get arrested for trespassing and illegal parking.

After they are driven away, I approach the remaining officer and ID myself. We share a laugh as I point out my position. The officer informs me that the gym offers parking for $3 an hour. The fine for the parking was $600. The tow was around $300. The trespass will be likely a couple thousand dollars in fines.

I later heard that the car owner was suing the bank and the gym. Mom left the place a year later and no one parked without a permit again. Now, the light rail goes through where that office was, so parking is more expensive.

My fiancée suffers from a somewhat rare neurological condition called Parenthesia Neurologica, which is connected to traumatic nerve damage caused by not one but two car accidents. One aspect of Parenthesia Neurologica is that she has mobility issues and finds it difficult and extremely painful to walk more than short distances. However, like many people with a disability, her disability is not easily seen or noticed unless she is attempting to walk. As a result, we occasionally run into what I call “The Disability Police”.

The most common occurrence is when I am driving the car with [Fiancée] in the front passenger seat, park the car in a marked disabled parking spot (with the disabled parking tag hanging from the car’s rearview mirror), and get out of the car. They see me easily walking around the car to open the door for her and start screaming, “You’re not disabled! You can’t park in that disabled person parking spot!”

Particularly when we go grocery shopping, we go to supermarkets that have powered scooters so that she can ride and drive around the store while shopping. On a recent visit to our local supermarket, I did what I usually do: I parked the car, went into the store, found a scooter with a fully charged battery, got on it, and drove it out to our car so that [Fiancée] wouldn’t have to walk from the parking lot into the store and get the cart herself.

Normally, this is not an issue, but this time, some self-appointed “Disability Police Person” saw me walk into the store and start driving the scooter out to the parking lot. She started chasing after me, screaming.

Woman: “You’re not disabled! I saw you walk into the store without any problem! Thief! Thief! I’m going to call the police!”

Knowing how things are in our little Cape Cod, Massachusetts town, I just decided to park the scooter next to our car and told [Fiancée] to stay in the car.

A police car pulled up, and Miss Disability Policewoman started telling the officer that I was not disabled and had taken one of the scooters for disabled people and was attempting to steal it. The officer came over to our car.

Officer: “Hi, [My Name].” *Looks into the car* “Hi, [Fiancée]. By the way, [Fiancée], thanks for the cookies you baked and brought over to the police station last week. We really loved them.”

Miss Disability Policewoman’s mouth dropped open, and when the police officer helped [Fiancée] out of the car and onto the scooter, it looked like the woman wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and hide.

The police officer then turned to her and addressed her in a voice a parent might use on a misbehaving, bratty child.

Officer: “Miss, I suggest you go somewhere else, mind your own business, and stop harassing my friends.”

She scurried off, got in her car, and left.

[Fiancée] loves to bake and cook, and she drops off cookies and brownies at the local police station and firehouse. She doesn’t consider it a bribe but considers it just being a good neighbor and realizes that our local police and firemen don’t get paid a big salary or get properly appreciated.

A couple of years back, my family and I went out to eat. After we finished and made our way back to our car in the parking lot next to the restaurant, a car was pulling up and parked at the side of the street, right across the entry/exit of the parking lot.

The driver left his car and saw us standing at the entry to the lot, staring at him in disbelief.

Driver: “Can I leave my car there? It won’t take long. I’m just going to pick something up! I’ll just be a minute!”

Not only was the lot half-empty but — as we pointed out to him — if he pulled forward just a car length, he would be in a completely legal parking spot and be even closer to the restaurant!

He wasn’t exactly happy, but he pulled forward and away from the parking lot.

I guess he really wanted to take the extra 2.5 steps.

I used to work for a valet company that would contract its employees out to venues needing to host a large number of guests with a limited amount of parking.

We typically worked short-staffed because the company would always have more contracts to fill than valets available. This night was no different, with only three of us staffed for a party on a cold January night next to a lake.

We usually would only find out the details of the party when we arrived for the shift, so showing up early was always worth it to help with planning. Tonight seemed simple on the surface: a party of about 100 people. Since people tended to carpool more often than not, that translated to only about fifty to sixty vehicles we’d have to park. For the three of us, it was looking like an easy shift.

Unfortunately, the weather turned very quickly, and before any guests had even arrived, it began pouring down frozen rain with high winds blowing inland from the lake. This meant that we were having trouble with our key storage, and more importantly, our sign indicating where guests should pull in and expect valet. To make things worse, everyone decided to show up at exactly the same time, meaning that one of us had to stay up front to greet the guests in the driveway while the other two rushed as fast as possible to move their cars up to let the next group of cars into the driveway.

The traffic was terrible and there was about a fifteen-minute wait for people just to enter the driveway. This caused people to start becoming impatient, and the two lines of cars started to get out of control.

In the midst of all this, the wind had blown our sign over into the driveway, leaving the bolts that held the sign to the post sticking up. None of us had noticed this since we were too busy just trying to help people get to their party. That is until this one customer approached the valet stand in a particularly sour mood.

Customer: “Your sign punctured my tire, and it went flat while I tried to pull in!”

Me: *Surprised and confused* “How did the sign puncture your tire?”

Customer: “I ran it over cause you left it in the middle of the driveway! You’re buying me a new tire!”

I was still trying to get other guests in around his now-stricken truck as we spoke.

Me: “Why would you run it over, though?”

Another guest now chimed in.

Customer #2: “Yeah, we had to run it over, too; there was nowhere to go.”

Me: “Okay, well, I’m not sure what you want me to do. No one told you to run over the sign so if you want any help, you’ll have to wait until I’m finished helping the other guests.”

Customer: “This is unacceptable! Your sign popped my tire; you have to replace it and call me a tow truck!”

I had now had enough of this guy’s attitude and told him I’d call my manager for advice. Thankfully, my manager is amazing and doesn’t take anyone’s BS. After I explained the situation to him, he stopped me.

Manager: “Wait. So, he ran over the sign, which was his own decision, and thinks it’s our fault that he couldn’t drive around it?”

Me: “Yep.”

Manager: “So, that’s his own problem. Tell him tough luck, he should learn how to drive, and we’re not responsible for what he does before he even gets to you!”

I returned to the customer with this information and told him that in no way would my boss be reimbursing him for his mistake and that he could talk to the venue about it if he wanted to. He did, and my coworkers and I finished with the incoming guests. About twenty minutes later, the guy came out, defeated, mounted his own spare tire, and went home.

I’m still baffled by the choice of multiple people to just run over an object in the road and risk damage to their own cars.

My mom travels a lot for work, and her employees go with her to help. Her best employee went with her on a trip, and they left their cars in a lot run by a company that watches your car while you’re flying to another state.

When my mom and her employee came back to get their cars, the lot manager froze up.

Manager: “Are you [Employee]?”

Employee: “Yeah. Why?”

Manager: “There’s been… an incident.”

Three of his employees were racing in customers’ cars, and the one driving [Employee]’s had completely totaled it. It was f***ed up beyond repair. The three employees were fired immediately and were facing criminal charges.

Mom said she had never seen [Employee] this angry before, but she was also so pissed off that all she could do was stand there and cry and laugh at the same time while looking at her car, which was completely destroyed and obviously totaled.

This was ten years ago. [Employee] won the lawsuit against the company and the former employee responsible, and she now has a new car. Mom has flat-out refused to do business with that company since, and the company she works for cut ties with them after the incident and closed the business account.