Bob's Angry Rants

So, what everyone seems to want to know about is Martha and her latest escapade. Well, here you go:

Martha's current crisis is fighting a parking ticket that she received for parking in a bus zone. She had parked her car half in the loading zone and half in the red zone while she went looking for her father in the area. When she got back to her car (about 10 minutes later), a meter maid had blocked her in and was writing a ticket. She described the meter maid as "extremely rude" and "a jerk" because she wouldn't listen to her "circumstances" and wrote the ticket regardless. The basis of her challenge is that the code allows for exceptions to be made in emergency situations and that the meter maid wouldn't even let her plead her case. I'm pretty sure that "I couldn't find anywhere else to park except the garage and there is no way that I'm paying those robbers $10 to park my car." doesn't qualify as an emergency, but who knows.

So far, she has submitted for a written review, which was rejected. Now she's going in for an administrative hearing in person. Should that fail, she plans to keep appealing until they retract the ticket.

Additionally, local rules state that a petitioner is to pay the fine first and then be reimbursed, should they win their case. Martha has no intention of paying any money, so she's applied for a waiver. When she received the form, however, she started screaming about how the court was "ignorant" and that she wasn't going to turn over her personal information to a bunch of paper pushing jerks. So, she only filled out the portions of the forms that she wanted to (name, case info) and sent it in. She is of the opinion that her financial status and personal information are none of their business. When I suggested to her that waivers were only for people who had financial difficulties and that was why they need that information, she responded that she didn't give a shit what they wanted, she just wasn't going to pay, so they had better give her the waiver. I then said that I didn't think she had a very good chance unless she at least completed the form, but Martha just called me naive and started complaining about bureaucrats.

So far she's spent ~$65 on a couple books (How to beat a ticket) and countless hours fighting this $140 fee, for an action which she admits that she committed. Why would someone go through this kind of effort when they know that they are wrong? She really believes that the meter maid was totally unjustified in giving her a ticket, despite the fact that she was violating the parking codes.

I'm really starting to think that Martha is seriously unbalanced. Her paranoia seems to be on the upswing. She told me, in total seriousness, that she thinks that the cops may be "out to get her" over this whole ticket business. This was right after she did a line by line reenactment of some new commercial she saw the other night, though, so who knows what's going through her mind.