From the Dark Ages

I have to go to parking ticket court on Long Island tomorrow morning. This is happening because Nassau County tells me I owe them over $3000 for parking violations at the Long Island Railroad Station from which I used to commute into Manhattan. They’re right. I owe them $3000. I’m not paying it. I can explain.

About a year ago, after getting off the train and walking down the platform stairs, I saw a parking enforcement guy writing me a ticket for an expired inspection sticker. This happened on the first or second day of the month, so he’d just caught me. I’m pretty good at keeping up with shit like this, and although I don’t remember exactly what happened, I probably figured I could get away with it until the next Saturday. Apparently not. I ran over and asked him if he’d started writing the ticket yet, telling him I was about to move the car. He decided to be an asshole about the whole thing.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re moving it or not,” he said. “You should have thought of that before you didn’t get your car inspected. Now you’re getting a ticket.”

“Yeah? Fuck you, meter maid. I’m sure your parents are really proud of your great fucking job.”

We were both wrong. And although I understand the purpose of enforcing the law, a fucking LIRR parking enforcement guy placing a ticket on a well-maintained vehicle with an inspection sticker that’s expired by one day should save his mouthing off for someone who deserves that shit. I know I could’ve avoided the situation altogether by being more conscientious, but that, to me, isn’t the point.

So, as usual, I couldn’t help myself, and it led to me getting ticketed every day for the next month – and every violation was for an expired registration, which was total bullshit because the car was properly registered, and the sticker was on the window. After a few days of this, I actually went to the DMV and paid for a replacement sticker, which I placed on the dashboard next to the existing sticker, along with a note telling this motherfucker to stop writing me tickets.

I sent a letter to every agency in existence explaining the situation. I had the DMV send me a registration history abstract that shows the car was properly registered. I even have pictures of my daily tickets next to my two registration stickers, along with that day’s newspaper – for seven straight days. So, if they’re reasonable about it, I’ll get out of this little mess.

Have I learned anything here? Probably not. And yeah, this post sucked, but so what? It’s a post, right?