get out while you still have the chance

there is a big group of people milling around the street in front of my office this morning. i think they're in training to be parking enforcement officers. they all have the handheld devices with the hip attachments that print out those horrible pink tickets, and they're all assembled around certain unfortunate cars, waiting for the meters to expire.

i want to run up to them screaming "don't do it!!" parking violation people in d.c. are truly on the side of darkness. my first week here i had a car that i would park on my own street, and vigilant as i tried to be about moving it every couple of hours, i still got two $40 tickets before deciding to just drive the thing back to atlanta. whenever i see one of those little white cars trolling around my street i feel like saying something mean.

not only are they evil, the parking enforcement officers, they're stupid. one night walking back to my apartment i noticed that someone had parked in front of a fire hydrant, probably thinking they could leave early enough the next morning that they could escape the pink ticket. in the morning i saw that the car was still there, but halfway out of its parking space. it had been booted.

now booting a car that's parked in a zone it doesn't have a permit for, i can understand. also booting cars at expired meters. but to see a car parked in front of a fuckin FIRE HYDRANT and put a boot on it ... that is an incarnation of stupid and evil to which i have never seen an equal.