Appalachia Year

Before I could stop myself from writing a passive aggressive memo, the damage was done.

My street has "24 hour parking". This means that every day a very short, toad-like woman (dead ringer for Officer Shrift from the Phantom Tollboth) cruises the length of my street in a slow-moving Jeep, holding a device that basically amounts to a very long stick with a piece of yellow chalk at the end. Leaning out the window, she chalks the tread of each car's front driver's side tire. The next day, when this ritual happens again, cars with chalked tires will be ticketed. It sort of looks like an incredibly slow-moving, shitty version of polo. I rarely drive, and to avoid tickets I have to move my car every night, even if it's just eight inches forward to get rid of the condemning blemish on the tread. Each transgression is a $20 fine and I've probably coughed up around $120 since I moved here for my parking sins. Infuriating.

When I found this ticket on my windshield today, I threw my keys on the road and dramatically kicked my tire. Something that will make you feel even worse about your stupid parking ticket is kicking a well-inflated tire. It's not quite punching through dry wall or breaking a mirror. Your shoe just sort of soundlessly bounces away, like the tire is whispering, "stop".