NYC is desperate for money and my ahole seems to be their piggy bank

I walk out to my new Hybrid Hippy-mobile which I hope is my way of saving the planet last week and was met with the sight so many New Yorkers have come to fear: that little orange envelope shoved between the windshield wiper and the hood of the car.  There is no worst feeling than the feeling you get when you see this parking equivalent of the pink-slip.

In nearly a decade of living in NYC, I have never had to worry about this frustration which many of my brethren have suffered from simply because I’ve had the fortune of not having had to deal with any of the myriad of parking regulations since before a few weeks ago I didn’t have a car.


As I walk up to the car that sinking feeling of desperation sank to the pit of my stomach.  Every thought raced through my head as the orange envelope stared at me chiding me. My first thought was anger because trying to decipher the NYC parking regulation signs which directly contradict one another is complete mental gymnastics.

 I look up at the sign which confirmed I was parked in a legal spot on the right side of the street, there wasn’t a meter which needed to be paid, I wasn’t anywhere near a fire-hydrant so that wasn’t the case either and although there is a school a few feet away I was clearly behind the ‘no parking school zone area’

What the hell did they pinch me for this time?

Frustrated I ripped open the envelope and read the summons -which by the way is now clearly printed from some kind of hand-held parking-ticket machine as opposed to being hand scribbled like they were the last time I had a car. I look at the ticket and it’s a summons for having a temporary registration sticker displayed.

Now it’s not a ticket for not having the car registered (it is properly registered) or not having it insured (it is also insured) but rather for not having stuck the sticker to the window. Since it’s not a moving violation and can’t possibly can’t be considered a major infraction you would think it would be a slap on the wrist summons of a few bucks, but no this greedy city who can’t seem to keep their own budget in line because of the kick-backs, payoffs and various degrees of corruption decides that they need to increase revenue because this ticket for not having a sticker displayed while parked is $65.

Now I know that I was in the wrong for not having displayed this ticket but what gets me is that although I got the registration in the mail a few days before the ticket, I hadn’t gone back to the car to put the sticker in it. I never even drove the car with this expired sticker in it, the car was never not registered it was just parked –legally- on a NYC street.

What gets me is that if I lived in some suburb and parked my car in your driveway you wouldn’t get a ticket but NYC is so desperate for money that they just look for reasons to ticket you.

Well the biggest problem is that the day I went outside to move the car and noticed the ticket was also the day I left my bag at work. Well the stupid registration sticker was in my bag and so when I got to the car that evening I was met with the sight of a second $65 ticket for the same stupid offense.