I Most Definitely Did Not Get a Parking Ticket Today

Ko's school has a new thing where a bus from downtown will take him all the way in to school. It saves me an hour in the morning, with a shorter drive, but more importantly, with not getting stuck in a neighborhood with two ways in and out along with 1000 other parents trying to drive the same roads at the same time.

It changes up my routine. There's a coffee shop two blocks away, and I've been going there a lot of mornings to start my work day. I've come to like the regulars. There's a samall group of dudes who seem to span every race, age, and income level who sit out there, smoke cigars, and yuck it up starting at 8:00 am. When there's no one at the counter, the staff is out there with us too.

I'm down there early enough to park alongside the curb right in front of the store. I have yet to pay the newly-installed parking meters down there. We all know that the ticket writers here don't work in bad weather, and it's hotter than the devil's taint out here, even that early in the morning.

After working for a few hours today, I had the table covered with laptops, an ipad where I was making notes, my phone (the Kowledge Fight podcast today was a lot of fun), and my coffee. I was about 20 minutes into a Teams call for work, and I saw the meter maid working his way up the street.

It was instantly a mad scramble. I was stuffing shit into my bag willy-nilly, sloshing coffee all over myself. My hurried hands couldn't find the dexterity to untie the dog from the table, and when I was finally into a position to bolt, I nearly darted out in front of a car and killed the dog and me both. Rather be dead than have a $20 ticket, apparently.

By the fact that I had time to type this out, you may have already concluded that I lived. And, I did not get a ticket. And, my call was on mute, so it all happened with my colleagues blissfully unaware.

I would love to know what the cigar-smoking regulars thought of my mad dash.