The Injustice

The Boy and I headed down to the Murray Hill neighborhood to enjoy one of his favorite weekend feasts - a Philly cheesesteak from Carl's Steaks on 34th and 3rd.

We found curbside metered parking on 35th and were in the midst of reading the signs and trying to figure out the new-fangled parking meter when Daryl noticed a meter maid taking interest in our car.

I walked over to tell her we were trying to fill the meter right at that moment. In fact, The Boy was still standing at the meter looking puzzled.

I thought we had narrowly escaped a parking ticket. But I was wrong.

"Doesn't matter. I've already started the ticket. Nothing I can do about it now," said the portly meter maid.

She kept on poking at her blackberry-like tablet.

A civilian acting as her sidekick (why was she there, what was she doing?) echoed her statement.

"Yeah. She already started. There's nothing she can do about it."

"But we're standing right here at the kiosk trying to figure it out. We just parked the car," I said.

"Sorry. Nothing I can do," she said again, disinterested.

"Yeah. Nothing she can do," repeated the sidekick.

At this point, The Boy walks over. The whole scenario is repeated again, with the same lack of care by our apathetic city worker.

So, not having done anything wrong, we're slapped with a $110 parking ticket! Ms. Personality waddles away and The Boy and I fume in the car. Next time we'll just double park. They don't seem to care as much about that.