War On Parking Meters

As you may know, I am waging a secret war on junk mail. What I do is open the junk mail and look for postage paid return envelopes. Then I rip everything up and stuff it in the return envelope, and send that back.

The junk mailer has to pay the postage both ways - and has nothing to show for it. I swear that if EVERYONE did this, junk mail would stop. Halt. Come to an end. So lets get to it here! All Americans need to start doing this. If the junk mail is not the kind with a a return envelop, mark "RETURN TO SENDER" on it and drop it back in the mail. Or call the phone number listed on the thing and say "your direct mail campaign FAILED. I will not buy any shit from you, or use your crappy service EVER. By the way I am also going to leave this phone number and address on 50 "get free crap" websites. Expect a whole lot of junk mail and junk calls".

The scourge of junk mail would simply end.

Anyway, I want to talk about my secret WAR ON PARKING METERS.

You see once I went out to get dinner at some salad place in Coral Gables. At the time a group of people would go every Sunday to dinner someplace. The people were radio people - so the food was radio people food. By the way, just so you all get the idea. These radio people were not broadcasters, just into radio as a hobby. When they would do public service events, and the orders for event t-shirts went in, it was assumed you would want a XXXL or XXL unless you said otherwise. Whatever that means.

For reasons that I do not care to get into (too depressing) the people went on a healthy living kick. So the weekly dinner was to be at a place in Coral Gables that is known for salads. I even remembered what I ordered that day - a salad with balsamic vinegar dressing. Now other people were getting salads then smothering them with evil dressing - canceling out any healthy living benefits - but whatever. That is not important. I just thought it was amusing. If you are going to do the healthy living thing - you have to do it up madman style.

By the way - my experiment is going well. So far I am well over a week without animal products constituting the bilk of my diet. I have not gone 100% vegan, that is just insane. I might try it just to see how long I can deal with it. This is what the experiment is by the way - to see how long I can keep this up. Today for dinner I had some rice with a tomato based mixed vegetable sauce, some chicken (like I said, primarily vegetable based - not 100% totally vegetable based), and a side salad with vinegar and olive oil dressing. Pretty good.

Now where was I? Oh yea. The parking meter.

It was Easter Sunday when everyone went to the dinner. For some reason, the area was packed. It is a popular hip area where Coral Gables meets the SHITTY of South Miami. Coral Gables has free parking on Sunday. The SHITTY of South Miami does not. The place everyone was going to is on the Coral Gables side of Sunset Drive, but all those spots were filled. So I parked across the street - on the SHITTY of South Miami side.

There were not many open spots on the SHITTY of South Miami side. But I found one. I parked there. And then I put a quarter in the meter. NOTHING happened. The meter was not working. It took my quarter (two quarters really) but would not give me any time. There were no other parking spots in view. I looked.

So I just go in to the place. I was running late and did not have time to drive all over the place looking for another spot. I had already done this - and there were none. Plus it was Easter Sunday night.

And of course, when I get out of the place, the guy is there giving me a ticket. I point out that the meter is not functioning. He says "I know, it has not been working for about a week". OH REALLY! And when did the Shitty of South Miami intend to fix the meter? Huh? I mean, why fix it when you can hand out a $15 ticket per car as opposed to just getting a buck and a half or so per car?

So I go to South Miami Shitty Hall. They say there is nothing that can be done. I had to pay. I asked about the broken meter (which they knew about) and they said I should have found another space. But there were no other spaces. Not their problem! Not at all! My problem.

So I paid the ticket. What else could I do?

But I thought up a way to get even. There is this stuff you get for boats called "Marine -Tex". It is a two part epoxy. Part one is this paste, part two is a liquid hardener. The paste will not cure unless it is mixed with the hardener. When it cures, it is like fiberglass. It is chemical resistant, heat and cold resistant - and pretty good stuff really. I use it to fill in small holes and cracks in the fiberglass.

Anyway I though up this plan. Why not mix some Marine-Tex up and put it in the parking meter locks? I could still put the quarters in the meter so I would not get a ticket. But once the stuff hardened the meter can not be opened with a key. So the money could NOT be taken out of it. Not without drilling out the lock anyway. People could park there and not get tickets, but just TRY to get the money out of the meter. Go on, try it! Try to get that money! Can't open the meter? Why isn't that sad?

No, it is not sad. Sad is knowing that some parking meters do not work, but NOT FIXING THE THINGS because it is more profitable to just give out parking tickets.

Not saying I did this. For that would be "vandalism" and is probably against the law. I would never knowing and willingly break the law. Unless it is for an illegal lane change, or unlawful speed outside of a school zone. I would never speed in a school zone, for that is just stupid crazy dangerous. Kids are around! And a lot of kids are very dumb and could run out in the street.

So I probably did not do this. I just thought of it. And you can think about it too. I would not recommend doing this, for it would be illegal and I do not advocate illegal acts. But there is nothing wrong with thinking about it! Thinking is not illegal.

OK OK - I did not do that. But I did think about it. I was just too chicken to go through with the plan. I was upset with myself over this. They deserved to have that thing tampered with so that they could not remove the money without drilling the lock out. It was broken and in need of repair anyway.

Oh yea, I have a typing impediment. This is why when I try to type "city" it often comes out as "shitty". I am in typing therapy to fix this problem now. So no making fun of me. I am very sensitive about my typing impediment. The SHITTY of South Miami probably understands this.

By the way, I drive a yellow 2004 Ford Mustang GT convertible, just in case anyone reading this is an evil minion for the SHITTY of South Miami.

The new meters have a solar panel on them. You can pay with cash or a charge card. A receipt prints out and you place that inside your car so it is visible through the windshield.

I am wondering - what happens if someone takes a piece of cardboard and covers the solar panel up?