Ticket

DON’T YOU HATE when you drive to the White Hen Pantry over on Sixth Street to pick up milk and beef jerky and you park in front of a meter but don’t have any change because the other day you were staring at your two dollar bill wondering if it was legal currency and you were too timid to use it so you stuffed the two dollar bill back into your pocket and ended up paying for the rest of your pizza with your collection of quarters? So now that you’re fresh out of change but also thinking about the fact that you’re fresh out of milk and beef jerky and in dire need of protein, you decide to just take a chance and run in there quickly, and then you notice a meter maid that has been watching you ignore the parking meter the whole entire time and as you walk into White Hen you point at the meter maid and you say, “I’ll just be five minutes. Don’t you dare write me a ticket. Don’t do it. DON’T DO IT!” You say it in a faux angry way, the same way Ben Stiller or, even better, Will Ferrell would say it — with a goofy-looking straight face — and then either Jimmy Fallon or Horatio Sanz would giggle and ruin the entire skit and the studio audience would laugh at their lack of composure but anyway the meter maid winks at you and you walk into the Pantry to buy your milk and beef jerky and when you finally come back out, you see her cop car speeding away in a hurry with exhaust clouds everywhere and then you immediately spot one of those bright yellow parking ticket envelopes tucked neatly underneath your windshield wiper. Don’t you hate that?

Because, I do.