' Parking Meter '



Paying it Forward in a Post-Parking-Meter World
Recently I was running a particularly soul-sucking round of
errands and parked my car in a metered spot.

I paid for the meter's maximum amount of two hours, but my
errand only took half an hour.

Now, usually I would have been happy to leave a meter with time
left in it and, particularly on a bothersome day, would even add
quarters for the next person.

It's largely selfish, really, because then the rest of my soul-sucking
errands are cheered a bit by the thought that maybe I made
someone else's soul-sucking errands a tiny bit less soul-sucking

. But guess what ?




My city has made the switch to muni-meters—those robotic-looking
machines where you pay on a credit card and receive a receipt that
you then place on your dashboard.

Good news if you've run out of quarters, but terrible news for the
parking meter pay-it-forward phenomenon.

I actually hung around for a minute to see if someone else would
park there so I could hand them my time-stamped receipt.

Alas, no one did, and my extra $1.50 slipped right past would-be
parkers and into the pocket of the city council—or whoever it is.

This does nothing for my soul-sucking errands.

Next stop, drug store. Sigh.




And you know what ?

It's the same on the freeway: I have a friend who used to always
pay for the toll of the car behind her but admits that since she's
switched to the automated E-ZPass, she's abandoned the practice,
whizzing through as a laser anonymously zeeps her toll-paying pass.

Not to get too Andy Rooney here, but these days, even doors open
themselves !

How's a person supposed to perform a daily act of paying it
forward if the world's going to be so darn automated ?






Love Ya, ~Barbara