In my opinion parking officers are the tax collectors of our modern time; they are inescapable, remorseless, and almost universally self-profiting. I feel that if Jesus were to walk the length and breadth of Spadina Ave., he would very quickly overturn the card-slot meters and send this brood of vipers slithering, venom-less, back to their hovels in Etobicoke or wherever such beasts dwell at night– so great would be his righteous indignation.
I say this because, yet again, I am leaving Canada indebted to the city of Toronto. It seems I cannot drive into that city and emerge unscathed, without a flapping, yellow ticket tucked beneath my windshield wiper. The frustrating thing is that I actually try to obey the signage and pay all necessary fees. I really do!
For instance, last week, Colleen and I were scheduled for a 3:00pm interview at the Korean Consulate. We parked around the corner on St. Clair Ave. and paid for 45 minutes– a generous amount considering we were expecting a 2-5 minute interview. Unbeknownst to us, the consulate scheduled all thirty visa applicant interviews for the top of the hour, so we were stuck watching Korean tourism propaganda while the minutes on our meter ticked away. At 3:35 I decided to risk missing my interview in order to drop more money on my parking space; however, after running up the street, I discovered I could only purchase another 15min. I paid anyway, stuck the stub on the dash, and dashed back to the consulate.
Within minutes, Colleen and I were ushered behind an immensely heavy curtain before an immensely heavy dignitarian. I answered “yes’ to his question, “so…you want to got to Korea with your wife?” and was promptly declared fit enough to teach Korean children. Do you think diplomats are aware of just how inconvenient and utterly useless such procedures are? Mostly, I suppose, they are too awash in the self-importance of their red license plates and diplomatic immunity to care much about our ‘inconvenience’.
But anyway, I’m scaping the wrong goat. We walked out of the consulate at 3:57pm and headed for our car. Ahead of us, a parking attendant pulled up to our car and withdrew his electronic gadget of (in)justice. We picked up our pace and, within a minute, I was calling out from the trolley tracks, “excuse me, sir; we’re leaving!”
He heard us but simply shook his head. With a break in traffic, we rushed across the street and again I repeated, “please sir, we’re here now and we’re leaving.”
“Too late,” was all he muttered, while continuing to enter information.
“No!” I shouted, throwing open my car door and waving both parking stubs at him. “We were interviewing at the consulate,” I exclaimed in desperation, “I risked it and ran out to put more money in. I’ve already paid for two (insert expletive) parking stubs.” My blood was, as they say, already boiling by this point and I didn’t really intend to swear. But I did, frustrated by such indifference on the part of the officer. My swear word, falling as it did upon virginal ears of the most pure kind, jarred him into responsiveness. He snapped his head up and looked genuinely shocked, as if surprised to realize that people actually don’t like receiving parking tickets.
“What?” he asked, brows furrowed in incomprehension.
I re-explained the context of our two minute tardiness, but he cut me off with a shrug and another, more definitive, “too late” comment tossed dismissively across the roof of my car. Had he bothered to extend a single, “sorry,”– an olive branch of sympathy–I may have been sufficiently diffused; a brief explanation even: “listen, I’m sorry, but I started before you arrived and I can’t erase the ticket.” But no. Just “too late” and he turned back to the meter.
So, I screamed. I screamed at him and at the city while slamming my door so hard I am quite surprised nothing broke. I turned the key and called for Colleen to step into the car; I wanted to escape before giving him the pleasure of actually pinning the ticket to my windshield.
Colleen, for her part, was trying to marshal a more reasoned, less reactive argument than I had mustered. But, of course, when you’re upholding the by-law with such resolve and commitment, you have no time for explanations. As he snapped the wiper back in place, Colleen scrunched the ticket up and jumped into the car. I threw a few more curses at thieving Hogtown and peeled out of my parking spot.
And it’s a good thing too. Had I learned of the $60 nature of the yellow slip half a block earlier, I may very well have murdered the man. As it was, my steering wheel stood in for his head and I beat it mercilessly.
But there is, in all this, a small vindication.
A few minutes up the road, Colleen let out a little laugh and said, “well, if it makes you feel any better, the guy’s name is A. Ho!” It did feel better, actually. Such a name is just as denotative of character as that of Abraham or Hitler. In fact, A. Ho was destined, from the day his mother expulsed him from her womb, for a profession in Parking “Services”. An A. Ho’s life trajectory can yield nothing better, no matter how hard he tries.
So, perhaps, I am just as much at fault for expecting a slice of sympathy from so great an A. Ho.
Clearly I have much to learn.
