It's like someone with yellow envelopes and a printer is playing a practical joke on us or something... So, in case you don't know, we bought a car, which is really worthy of a blog post of its own. We got it in the evening and the next morning (before we even woke up), we had a parking ticket. Then we took our car to the shop because the mechanic we took it to before we bought it is incompetent (again worthy of its own blog post). We got it back in the evening, and the next morning, we had another ticket. Why, you ask, didn't we buy our parking permit while the car was in the shop? Well, it turns out that Stanford's Parking and Transportation doesn't prorate parking permits that are purchased on a monthly basis, so if you buy your new car on the 24th and want to buy a permit, you're pretty much out of luck and have to pay for an entire month's parking to park for less than a week. Okay, so regardless, after the second ticket, we wised up. We went straight to the computer and bought our permit, BUT, after you buy your permit online, they have to email you to let you know when it's ready to pick up and then you have to go get it. We figured it would be okay because they would just run our plate number or something and see that we had a permit. No such luck. (I don't know why we figured this...) The next morning, what do you know but that we had another ticket. Well, last time we had to buy a parking permit, we were allowed to print up the confirmation number and put it in the windshield until we got the real deal, so we figured this would work out pretty well, except that we don't have a printer. (I know, now you're thinking 'What!?! No car AND no printer? Are you guys from the Ice Age or something?' Nope. We're just incredibly cheap.) We thought the dude with the yellow envelopes might have pity on us and see a note in the windshield with our confirmation number written on it and a promise to pick up the permit that very same day. The next morning as I was walking out to the car to put the confirmation number up that I meant to put there the night before, what did I see but yet ANOTHER yellow envelope with a dainty white ticket fluttering in the breeze. But, I figured now we're set! We've got the confirmation number up there PROVING that we paid for our permit and are legally and rightfully parking in Escondido Village. Somehow, I knew this was too good to be true. This afternoon, for no reason other than to see if we'd gotten another ticket, I went outide and was completely nonplussed to see another yellow envelope with a soggy ticket inside. Unfortunately, Peter threw out his back this morning and will be unable to pick up the parking permit anytime today (and possibly tomorrow...), and he's the only one who can pick it up, as far as we know. I wonder how many more tickets we'll get? (They only cost $35 each.)
So what do you think? Are we irresponsible or unlucky?
