'Taint Right

This past week, while my voice was stricken, I brought a terrible tragedy upon myself. The tragedy was wholly preventable, ridiculously expensive and endlessly maddening. Here is how the said tragedy unfolded.

I arrived at work early in the morning for my host shift. Being that nary a peep could wheeze out of my swollen gullet they sent me home straight away. After all, what kind of a hostess gestures silently at guests as they walk through the door? A pathetic game of food service charades was not what I was scheduled for, and so I promptly left.

Feeling slightly sorry for myself, I spent my last three dollars on a piping hot soy-vanilla latte. At least the infernal infection that had taken my voice had not robbed me of my ability to taste the wickedly delicious sugar bomb that passed through my speechless lips. Forgetting briefly about my tongue tied woes, I walked breezily back to the parking garage.

As I was driving out of the parking garage I noticed that the booth where the attendant usually resides was empty. They would apparently not show up for another hour. The only place to pay was at the automatic machine, which took only quarters and dollar bills. This was unfortunate as I had just spent my last cash on my espresso craving and I had not a quarter to my name. I was sitting in my truck in front of the blocked exit (which would only open to the tune of two dollars of cold hard cash) fuming at the pickle in which I found myself. There were cars behind me waiting to get out and there was no where to park. Except, I noticed, the handicap spot to my right. I pulled in to it just to let the car behind me pass.
"You know you can't stay parked here," I reminded myself silently.
But I saw no where else to go unless I were to go back into the garage the wrong way, risking a potential collision. So I got out of the car and ran back down the street to my work to borrow change.

I got back to my ticket free truck, change in hand to realize that I could not find my keys. I frantically searched all over. I tore my purse apart. I ran back to the coffee shop to look and then back, for the THIRD time, to my work. The jingly little bastards were no where to be found. Becoming more and more flustered, I patrolled every inch of sidewalk that I had walked upon. No keys. As I sullenly approached the garage I saw the sight that I was trying to avoid: The meter maid in the middle of ticketing my red, illegally parked Toyota pickup.

This was no ordinary meter maid mind you. He is the most hated man of downtown. I had heard legendary stories of his wickedness from many a public parker. My friend Patty has an ongoing feud with him and he is apparently a ruthless and bitter old man who finds pleasure in ticketing the unassuming masses. This was my first time dealing with him. It was not pleasant.

I ran up silently waiving my arms and flashed him my "I have laryngitis and I can't speak" card that I had been carrying around with me. I then started furiously scribbling down, on my handy dandy note pad, my pathetic excuse for parking in the forbidden handicap zone. The old man squinted at my appalling scrawl, and shook his head.
"Sorry ma'am," he drawled in a his rural North Carolinian accent. "This here is a handicap spot. 'Taint no reason ya should be parkin' in this part of the garage."
The way he said garage sounded like gay-raj.
"I am SO SORRY," I scribbled tearfully on my notepad. "I didn't see anywhere else to park without going in the garage the wrong way!"
This note took me awhile to scribble out and he sighed impatiently, looking out onto the early morning street. It was as if he resented my time consuming muteness. It was keeping him from ticketing all the other illegally parked and meter expired hooligans who were no doubt running rampant in his precious parking spaces.
"Ma'am, ya should always hay-ave the munny to get out of this here gay-rage. It's negligent and just plain stupid that 'ya didn't"
My face turned red in muted rage.
"And further more ma'am it just ain't raht stealin' this here spot from the cripples."
He just said cripples to my face. I half expected him to point to his associate meter maid, a black man standing behind him, and call him a negro.
"HANDICAP," I wrote in capital, politically correct letters on my pad defiantly.
"Ahem, raht, raht, whatever" he mumbled as he went back to issuing my ticket.
His partner in parking fees stood blank faced beside him spitting chewing tobacco on the ground every three minutes. Apparently it takes two hillbilly ingrates to issue parking tickets in this town.
He ripped off the ticket and handed it to me.
"Let this be ah lesson to ya young missy," he chided arrogantly.
I looked angrily down at my ticket and almost fainted. It was not just any ticket. It was a $250 ticket! A defeated tear ran down my cheek as the two evil meter maids disappeared into the darkness of the cursed parking garage.

The most irritating part of the story was yet to come. My keys, which were "missing" and were the reason for my delayed departure and thus the reason for my ticket, were sitting in a deep corner pocket of my purse the entire time. I could muster not even a giggle at the ridiculousness of it all. For no giggle could pass my lips. I was mute. I was pathetic. I was Selene, the "negligent" woman who steals from the "cripples."

I took a sip of my now cold latte and barrelled out of the parking garage, my crumpled ticket beside me.