Exercises in Authoritarianism

Where I live, you can't park on my side of the street on Mondays so the town can do what it laughingly calls street cleaning. By this they mean some guy in a modified zamboni sprays water on the street and rotating brushes push the dirt around some. There are signs posted on every street, saying you can't park on this side on a certain day, between 9 am and 4 pm. The police, having nothing better to do, watch this like hawks, ready to swoop down in an instant so they can temporarily relieve themselves of the stultifying boredom of policing a town that has roughly 5x more patrol officers than it could ever possibly need.

Sometimes, I forget about this, and park in front of my house on Monday.I did so back in November, and received a ticket, probably the instant I was out of sight. The ticket used to be $25, but it's apparently been bumped up to $50 now, since the government always keeps up with inflation, except where wages are concerned. That or someone's been on their backs to crack down on this epidemic of people parking inconveniently. There was a court date on the ticket, set for later in this month. I suppose there's such a backlog of felonious reprobates such as myself that it takes that long to get down to me.

I went back and forth over whether I would attend the court date or not, and today I decided I might as well just pay the ticket. The last couple times I'd paid in person, the police dept. was kind enough to reduce the fee to roughly half. So like a responsible citizen doing his civic duty, I went down to the police station. When I went in, there were two officers chatting behind the counter. One broke away and approached the foot-thick bulletproof glass that separated him from the dangerous world outside. He asked what I needed, and I explained that was there to pay a parking ticket. He informed me that the Village Hall now handles parking tickets. I thanked him and left.

Maybe it was the blast of cold air, but the moment I stepped outside I was filled with dread. The police in this town are hardly shining beacons of public servants, but they are occasionally able to tell the difference between a hardened criminal and a simple mistake. But the soulless automatons of Village Hall are a bunch of pencil pushing, by-the-numbers, unbending bureaucrats if ever any existed. They weren't going to be doing me any favors. I'd be lucky if anyone there stepped around me if I accidentally stood in one of the ruts they'd worn into the floors during their daily routine.

But being that I was out and about already anyway, I headed down there. The power games began the moment I approached the counter. Like the police station, there were two people standing around talking when I entered. However, all similarities ended there. No one stepped away from their chat to see if they could help me. In typical government worker, neither of them so much as acknowledged that I was in the room. I imagine had I been naked, on fire, and pronouncing their doom in the voice of God, I would have gotten the exact same treatment. At one point, a third person approached and joined the conversation. She managed to enter the room, talk, and leave without even pointing her body in my general direction.

Eventually, the conversation ended, and the two women retreated to their desks. Moments after that, one of them said "I'll be right with you, sir." I thought the "sir" was a nice touch. It seemed to say "We couldn't care less about whatever stupid reason you have for darkening our doorstep, but that doesn't mean we don't respect you." Granted, for all I know, she was speaking to her stapler, since she didn't even look up from her desk when she said it.

A while after that, the other woman approached, fixed her gaze on something over my right shoulder,  and asked what she could do for me. I held out the ticket and my checkbook, and said that I wanted to pay a parking ticket. She asked someone in my general vicinity if I could take it out of the envelope it had been placed in. I did so, and though she didn't ask me to, I unfolded it for her as well.

Having an excuse to stop pretending to look at me, she took the ticket and examined it. She evidently didn't actually read anything on it, because she asked me how much it was for. I told her I thought it was for $50, and she said that sounded fine. Too bad I didn't say I thought it was for $10. I just might have gotten away with it.

I explained I would be paying by personal check, and she told me who to make the check out to. I asked for a pen, and she shot an invisible person next to me a dirty look and gave me one. As expected, she didn't even offer to reduce the fee.

As I left, she thanked me. She actually thanked me. Her actual words were something like "Thank you very much," but what I heard was "Thank you for bowing meekly to our draconian authority. Next time be prepared to pay in blood, mortal." And these people wonder why "bureaucrat" is a dirty word.

-Long Days and Pleasant Nights