The Pandemic Soul

This is not, chronologically, the first part of the day. Neither will this post follow through to the equally bad end of the day. But nonetheless, this is a good place to start.

First, however, some history: Parking is a bitch downtown.

When I first moved in to Block 2, I made a personal resolution to myself that I would not pay for parking. Being that my rent is under $475, I can’t justify having to pay $50+ a month for parking. At that rate, I could just go get an apartement in West Little Rock closer to where I work, and not walk a half-mile from my car to my apt. door. Thus, I decided to find a way to park for free to justify living down town. For a few days I parked in the lot out in front of our building, but that was recently turned over to a different mgmt company and they began ticketing on a hourly basis, which was just an annoyance considering they would boot your car if you didn’t pay for tickets after two or three.

So, I asked Landan his opinion and he suggested I park in the alleyway between the 2nd & Main parking garage and the Peabody valet parking lot. This worked great for a little while, being that it was fairly near to my apt., was fairly safe (the Peabody and 2nd & Main garage both had all-night guards), and was, of course, free.

It was a little dangerous, however, considering that there is a dumpster in the alley which cannot be blocked. The difficulty is that even if you park eight feet away from it, when it’s emptied each morning it would often shift a number of feet in location. This led me to getting a ticket one morning for blocking the dumpster, even though I had parked quite a distance from it the night before. Nonetheless, I paid the ticket. Within a few days, the city put up four “No Parking� signs in the area where the dumpster may be — a span of about 15 feet. At this point, there is no other signage in the alley save for one sign on each side of the exit to the 2nd & Main garage which state “Do not block the exit.� Simple enough.

Keep in mind that I am not the only person parking here. On any given night, up to a dozen (or more) people could fit their cars in this alley.

On the 5th of May, I found a parking ticket on my windshield which stated the violation “Alley - Non. Comm. Veh.� Hm. I had heard that this had happened about a month before, but no one was being towed and I thought, “Surely, this too shall pass…�

A few days later, ticket #2 shows up on my windshield, same violation. Both are $30 fines, going up to $60 w/in 21 days. Mofo!

I decided that I couldn’t stand for this injustice. The alley has no signs stating you can’t park there. What’s more, the signage that is present seems to infer that it’s okay to park elsewhere in the alley, just not in certain areas.

So, now we’re up to speed.

Today, I took off the morning of work so I could run a few errands (mail sympathy cards to my grandmother and great-aunt, and get my hair-cut) and then contest these tickets in court. All was well until I got to the courthouse.

It was bad news once I got to the door, as I had to stand outside while they (slowly) checked people for weapons in the metal detector. Then, once inside, I tripped it four times. Finally, the lazy bitch of a Rent-a-Cop (not even a real officer, mind you!) used the wand and declared happily that I have a metal shank in my shoe. Good to know.

A state employee seated nearby doing nothing but drinking Gatorade was able to direct me into the “Criminal Court� courtroom, which I thought a little odd being that I’m not really a criminal, but okay. (Traffic court has its own room, which was chock full of haggards.)

The ticket says that parking violation constesting starts at 1:30pm. When I entered the room, there were no less than 75 people seated, filling about 5/6 of the seats. I found a seat and waited for about half-an-hour before going out into the hall to ask another state employee what the deal was. She said that I just have to wait until they call for parking tickets and then stand up.

So, I found my seat again and waited.

And waited.

And waited, among the trash.

And that statement is a bit of a pun, considering that everyone who was there had been cited for having trash in their yard. This included, but was not limited to: vehicles in the yard, vehicles on blocks in the yard, vehicles in the yard which purportedly could move in one direction, vehicles in the yard which could definitely move in all directions but could not prove so on the day the officer cited the violation, refridgerators and other appliances on the front porch, building materials in the yard, overgrown weeds, standing water, and a multitude of other inane inaneness.

No less than two hours later, the judge just happened to ask if there were any parking violations there. Without further ado, I raised my hand. I was told to come forward, at the same time another offender was also being called. I walked to the bench but pretty-much shoved aside by said other offender. So I waited, awkwardly, but thankfully considering that there were only about four other people left in the room at this point.

This is when the fun started. I was told by one of the court people to “Go ahead!� after the other guy walked away. I handed my pictures and citations to the officer (I had pictures to show there was no signage in the alley) who then snorted and said “Alley parking!� The judge asked if I was a glutton for punishment, considering my two citations, to which I responded that I hadn’t had a chance to secure other parking before I was cited for the second time.

At this point, things started to get a little odd, because the officer wanted to make sure that I was sent off with my fines and no pride, while the judge kept interjecting and being generally unwilling to listen to what I was trying to say. I managed to make only part of my case that there were no signs in the alley. The judge then advised me that he would dismiss one, because there was no signage, but I would have to pay the other since the first citation should have advised me not to park there.

Then, the officer took a moment to jab me a little more by asking, “Consider how a firetruck could get through there with all those cars parked!�

This is one of those moments in life when you wonder why the simple answer just didn’t come to you. I walked away and ignored his comment, but I should have responded “It probably couldn’t have gotten through at all, what with the dumpster in the way.� Argh.

Anyway, here’s the punchline: what do I find on my windshield after paying my $30 fine? A $10 expired meter ticket. Ba-dum-CHING!