Disclaimer: this post has nothing to do with hosiery. It just wanted to make the title rhyme.
I belive I have angered the Hautian gods as they have decided to kick my ass for the things I have been saying in this blog. Their first act of vengance: screwing with my parking!
Yesterday was like any other day, I woke up, did my morning thing and headed out to work. Because you can park anywhere in Terre Haute, the parking lot to my job was full. No worries, it has been full be before, I can usually just park on the street close by. No such luck. I had to circle the block TWICE (something I have not had to do in almost four months) because there was road construction and a funeral at the church next door to where I work. I ended up having to park a block away (also, not something I have done in months!) and I went to work. I realize the ease of parking here has softened me up a bit and I was irratated that I had to walk a block. A block? Back home people would have been jealous that I managed to get so close.
One thing I have come to like (and possibly love) about Terre Haute is that I can park pretty much any where I want. I have my own parking spot at my apartment, I park in the lot at work (usually), if I go downtown (this term is used loosely), I can always find street parking, but only for two hours and no one pays attenton any way. If I can't find parking, there is a lot where I can $1/hour or $5 day. Your eyes are not failing you: Five dollars. A day. Where I am from, you can get 20 minutes of parking for $5! Once Sassy was telling me how to get somewhere and she told me to park in the parking lot of the store accross the street. What? That idea is foreign to me, most likely because I have been trained to fear parking in store lots when I am not going to that store, There is a Dunkin' Donuts in my hometown that has a central location in a really hoppin' part of town. People would often park there to go to the other stores and come back to find their cars gone. Pretty sure there is someone hired to watch the lot and call the waiting tow truck on all the people that park there illegally. This happens mostly to out of towners as if there is one thing you have to know when parking in this neighborhood is DON'T PARK in the Dunkin' Donuts! Some shopkeepers try to help by posting signs on the door that advise against it, but chances are if you parked your car in that lot by the time you read the sign it is already too late. So when Sassy suggested that I park in a different lot, I was like "I don't want my car to get towed!" She assured me it wouldn't and then thought about it saying "I'm not sure we even have a tow truck here." Now, I am sure there are tow trucks in the Haute, but come to think of it, I have not seen one since I have been here.
During the work day, I got wrapped up in what I was doing and ignored the note to myself to move my car in the lot now there was room. I just kept right on doing what I was doing until I had to leave for an appointment at 245p. On my way back I noticed a blue piece of paper under my windshield wiper that I didn't think much of. In my life I have been trained to look for orange. If there is paper under your wiper blades the first thing you do is look at the color (white and orange) and once you rule out parking ticket, you know it was probably an ad. I kept driving while the ad was flapping in the wind and I had no luck in getting it off. By the time I got back to work, I pulled it out from under the blade and was gald I did ot discard it.
I was holding my very first Terre Haute parking ticket.
Of Course! I shoved the ticket in my purse making a note of the time I got it (239p...fml) and reacted the way anyone I know usually does. I cursed the metermaid's existence, that if I had only left a few minutes earlier and so on. I can't believe that I let this city trick me! They never check and I stopped caring about moving my car at the appropriate time when needed and today it has decided to bite me in the ass.
I finished up at work and went to a Christmas concert that Sassy's kids were in, Once again, I got hit with a full parking lot and had to park a block away...AGAIN! It was then I knew there a conspiracy. On the long walk back to my car I decided to change my ways and promate the awesome-ness of the Haute. You see, folks? I was contemplating lying to stop getting parking tickets and crappy parking spots and making the Hautians happy. It was when I got in my car and took a good look at the parking ticket that was going to make me repent and realized that my parking faux pas would cost me a whopping ten dollars. Ten. Dollars. Not the fifity I have come to know and hate, but ten? I can do ten.
Game on Hautian god of vengence! I have a crisp ten dollar bill with your name on it!As long as my readers are entertained, I consider it money well spent!
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