About 6 weeks ago I was in a hurry and pulled by car up to a parking spot along Walnut at 5:45pm, 15 minutes before meter enforcement ends. I had exactly one coin on me, a quarter. I popped it into the slot, and….. the blasted thing ate my quarter!

“Oh well, what are the odds someone will come by in the next 15 minutes?”, I stupidly thought, and I went inside.
Sure enough, I returned to find a ticket. Oh well.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. I’m ready to pay the ticket, but I can’t find it anywhere. I go online to the City Hall web site and I discover a form that lets me look up my ticket info. The problem is, it requires the ticket number. D’oh! But that’s okay, where was a link to send a request for assistance, so I explained my predicament and off it went.

Several days went by with no reply, when during a bout of cleaning I found my missing ticket. I went back online to use the convenient online payment system. Except I soon discovered that the online payment system doesn’t work if someone fat-fingered in your ticket and/or license plate number and you have no idea what typo they made in order to replicate it.

I was forced to resort to primitive means and search for my dusty old checkbook. I wrote my second check so far this year, used a stamp for the third time this year, and put it in the mail.

Miraculously, within 3 days the check was posted and all was well!

This was 2 weeks ago.

Then today, this showed up in my email:

Request In Process

We acknowledge your request for Other regarding XXXXXXXXXXX, Ticket # - .
If you have not received an answer within 2 working days, please contact the Municipal Court at 513-XXXX.

Wow, that was speedy!

Then it was followed by another email:

Based on the information that you have sent I show no parking ticket for you at this time.

Maybe because you already processed my payment and cleared the charge nearly 2 weeks ago?

Wow. :)