They Were Hoping You Couldn’t Tell Time

(Not long after I move into the city, my family drives over to see how I’ve settled in and take me out to dinner. My dad drives, dropping us off at the restaurant before going to find a parking spot. When he joins us, he tells us he parked at a meter and gave it plenty of quarters. We have a nice dinner, and then my dad leads us to where he parked the car. He gets to it first and sees something that angers him.)

Dad: “Oh, are you kidding me?”

Me: “What?”

Dad: “There’s a parking ticket on the windshield, but there are still ten minutes left on the meter!”

Mom: “Wait, really?”

(Sure enough, there are about ten minutes left on the meter from when my dad originally put money in it. The time stamp on the ticket shows that it was issued about ten minutes before we got there, meaning the ticket was issued with twenty minutes left on the meter! My parents take photos showing the ticket, the meter, and their watches to prove the mistake so they can contest the ticket. After this, they take me back home, and I forget about the whole thing until a few months later when I’m with my mom.)

Me: “Oh, hey, remember back when you got that parking ticket even though there was still time on the meter?”

Mom: “Oh, yes.”

Me: “You contested it, right? What happened?”

Mom: “They wouldn’t admit that the officer was at fault, but they still accepted our appeal.”

Me: “So, they agreed that you shouldn’t have to pay the ticket — the ticket that their officer left for no reason — but it’s still not the officer’s fault somehow.”

Mom: “Yep.”

(Gotta love city parking.)