Phil Havens

Parking Fail

April 25th, 2009

Just recently received my first ticket ever! Well since it’s only a parking ticket, I don’t think it counts as a full blown ticket, but you get the point.

Well, I was downtown attending the Art Institute of Philadelphia open house and was participating in the vicious sport known as finding a parking spot in downtown Philadelphia on a Saturday. It’s quite fun actually, but back to the point. There I was cruising up and down side streets scouring for a parking spot. As I drive down Walnut St, I see someone pull out of a parking spot so I jumped at the opportunity. Pulled in right behind him, put some quarters in the meter, enough for one hour and forty-nine minutes to be exact. Then I went on my way towards the Art Institute which was about 3-4 blocks away. Before completely leaving the street, I looked for the closest street sign, so I would know where I parked, which was one labeling 17th street.

Once I was done with the open house, I started to head back to my car. I had about 50 minutes left on the meter so I wasn’t worried about getting a ticket at all. I remembered 17th street so that’s where I walked. But to my dismay I didn’t actually park on 17th street as you can recall from earlier on. So since I believed I parked on 17th street, I walked up and down a 15 block span of 17th street looking for my car 3 times over. So if you do the math, that’s about 45 blocks that I walked.

Now I’m starting to realize that I’m probably not going to make it in time and the meter is going to expire. I remember seeing a For Eyes glasses store when I got out of my car. So I call 411 and ask for the nearest location of a For Eyes to me. The address, 1630 Walnut St. That is when I realized how stupid I am. I didn’t park on 17th street. I parked on Walnut and the first street sign I saw was at 17th and Walnut because I came to the intersection. So I started to head back towards Walnut to go retrieve my car and head home. As I turn the corner onto Walnut, I saw a member of the parking authority pass by me. I get up closer to my car and see a beautiful addition to my car’s front windshield. An envelope filled with a magical piece of paper that demands $46 dollars be paid. For an expired meter. Just a note, I made it to my car 3 minutes after the meter expired. The worst part of it all, I had extra quarters in my hand and decided to not put them in since I expected to only be inside the open house for about an hour. Lesson Learned.