Monday

Simple Ticket Gone Bad: Story Time

There's a sushi restaurant next door to the coffee shop where I sometimes work. The guy getting the ticket works at the sushi restaurant. He was delivering stuff. All the delivery vehicles park right there in front: FedEx, county liquor delivery, UPS, fresh fish truck, Starbucks supply truck, etc. This kid was in a car. That spot is also where the mopes often park their cars to run in for coffee. Too lazy to find a spot, too important to give a shit. Parking there makes your car stick out into the road a bit. You partially obscure a cross walk. Oh, and there's a hydrant. It's a shitty place to idle your Navigator to run-in for a shitty half-caf. Believe me, I hate on that shit. But, I'm okay with the kid this time.

So, the cop (Barry Bonds new job - city PD, by the way; neither County Mountie nor Statie) thinks it's a run-in mope, right? Obviously. The kid comes running out, flapping his arms about his delivery. But, you know, the cop has started writing the ticket, there's nothing to do about it. It's time to take one for democracy and justice and city revenue. Big, whoop. Looks like the kid's doing just that. It's over.

Look carefully at the picture above. Right side, top ("high, top-right"). You see a man in a blue shirt. That's a reflection from the diner's mirrored walls. That man is the owner of the sushi restaurant. He's actually between the sushi store (and me) and kid and the cop. The reflection is from behind the cop and the kid. He's coming to help the kid; to explain about the situation; to straighten everything out. But boss man decided to get into it with the cop. No Jedi Mind Tricks involved. At all.

Look below. The cop got kind of irked. There was yelling. Threats of towing. Calls for equality (the trucks park there). Requests for badge numbers. Orders ("step back into your store, sir!"). Ugly little scene over a little parking ticket. I'm just glad there was not Tasering or hand-cuffing or anything. Whew!