When we returned to the vehicle, there was a parking ticket on it.
> When I looked at the chalk time versus the time the ticket was issued,
> the difference of the times was only thirty-eight minutes.
Here's a parking meter story from ten or fifteen years ago that I know PAT will enjoy, because it involves one of his favorite topics: Chicago government.
The wife and I drove downtown on a Sunday to visit the Field Museum. We were pleasantly surprised when we got there to find ample parking curbside. There were meters, but the meters were placarded "Monday through Saturday, 6am to 10pm" so the parking was even free!
We enjoyed our visit to the museum, and when we returned to our car we found we had been ticketed for parking at an expired meter! Fifty bucks!
We took a photo of the meter's placard (with the meter number showing). Then we filed an appeal; I forget exactly how it worked but basically you explain in writing why you shouldn't have gotten the ticket and mail it to a special address. Anyway we explained about the "Monday through Saturday" thing, enclosed the photo, and returned to our regularly scheduled lives.
Then we got the response. Denied! Reason for denial: "Insufficient evidence" -- what do they want, we should rip up the meter and UPS it to them with a calendar???
"Fortunately" there is a process in place to appeal the appeal; all we had to do was fill out another form and send it in along with a non-refundable $400 check for court costs. Really!
So we solved the problem the easy way. We paid the fifty bucks, and we haven't been to the Field Museum since.
Gordon S. Hlavenka
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And I have not been back to Chicago since 2001, (actually not since 1999, but I returned there very briefly in 2001 for a couple months) and do not see any reason to return anytime soon. The whole place is rotten to the core with dirty tricks as you experienced. PAT]