"Instant karma’s gonna get you…"j.l.
Another driving story.
I was approaching where I was going move to the center lane to turn at a light. In my right side mirror I noticed a car approaching rapidly and something told me he intended to cut in in front of me to be first at the light. I sped up just enough to foil that plan so he was forced in behind me. Dick move on my part? Maybe. IDGaF. He then pulled into the oncoming lane and turned left on a red light while signing to me that I was number one.
He was so busy being pissed at me that he didn’t notice the patrol car sitting across the intersection. The patrol car noticed him.
I made sure to sign to him that, in fact, he was number one as I passed him.
It may not been exactly karma, but when Drop-zone(Mikey) saved my life it certainly was serendipitous.
Not “karma” in the traditional sense, but this is a story of justice.
Years ago I drove to city hall to pay my property tax, which they’d been harassing me about since it was overdue. The only available parking spots were a city-operated pay parking lot across the street, and some metered street parking. Since I was only going to be there for a couple of minutes to drop off a cheque, I parked on the street and dashed in, dropped off the cheque, and dashed out.
Imagine my fury at seeing a parking minion in the process of writing out a parking ticket, when I had driven out to city hall to give these bastards their blood money and had barely been parked for sixty seconds. And the asshat saw me coming, and instead of cancelling the ticket, hurried to complete it.
I was so mad that I grabbed it off the windshield and tore it up in front of him. He just snarkily said, “you just doubled it”. It might have been satisfying to throw it on the ground, but then the small-minded asshat might have tried to charge me with littering, so I stuffed it in my pocket.
Anyway, when I got home, I took out the pieces and had a look at them before throwing them away. It turned out that in his haste to finish writing the ticket, the asshat had got the license number wrong! So of course I never heard any more about it!
Incidentally, parking tickets around here include a description of the vehicle – colour, make, model – so if the incorrect license number was actually valid, any poor unfortunate who did get notice of a parking violation would easily have gotten out of it by showing that this was not remotely like his actual vehicle, and the parking guy was incompetent.
Reminds me of one I experienced.
I had parked at a meter in front of a restaurant. While inside eating I saw the parking person come and start to write me a ticket. It was only then I realized I’d completely forgotten to put any money in the meter.
I went out, apologized for my stupidity, and expected to be handed a ticket. She asked if I had money for the meter, and I did. Then she told me to put in an hour, and to have a nice day. I thanked her, fed it a few quarters, and went back to finish my meal.
A few minutes later I see her writing a ticket to a car across the street. A guy comes out of a business over there, yelling and waving his arms around about just getting there, just leaving, who does she think she is, and such. She just finished writing the ticket, stuck it under his wiper, and walked off.
Karma can cut both ways.
Anyone watch the “Parking Wars” show on TV? Often set in Philly, they have everything from torn up tickets to fights at the impound yard.