I Fought the Law

Okay, not the law.

The PPA.

For those of you not from around these parts, that's the Philadelphia Parking Authority. You may have seen them featured on a terrible show called "Parking Wars" on A&E.

They're dicks. There is no other (polite) way to put it. They take absolute pride in issuing tickets to meters that have expired only seconds before. They find insane joy in booting cars (sometimes even in front of the person's own home-ahem). They LOOOOVE to tow cars to the impound lot and then stare blankly at you when you provide 5 types of proof that your car was parked legally.

They are notoriously nasty, cruel, indifferent, miserable human beings. I'm not kidding or exaggerating. Ask anyone who lives in Philly.

So a couple weeks ago, when I had to drive to an appointment in the rain, I brought 3 dollars in quarters with me for an hour appointment (note: in this particular part of the city I was in, 1 hour of parking equals one dollar. But its different everywhere. Another reason the PPA sucks.).

Anywhooo, I park at a meter and put in my first quarter. The meter reads 15 minutes. I put in my second quarter. Nothing. I put in my third quarter. Nothing. I put in my 4th quarter, it gives me 15 more minutes! I put in my 5th quarter. Nothing.
So it goes on like this. I put my ENTIRE 3 dollars of quarters into the damn meter and ended up with a little less than 1 hour (after I had wasted 6 minutes or so fussing with quarters).

So I write a note to the PPA man and leave it on the windshield. It reads " Dear PPA Man, I just put 3 dollars in quarters into this machine and it only gave me an hour of time. Time now 4:15, back in 1 hour.
I then return 1 hour and 4 minutes later and on my windshield, right under the note, is (you guessed it!) a TICKET!
I said every curse word I could think of and got in my car (pissed as all hell) and drove home.

But instead of just paying it like I would have maybe 3 years ago, I called the damn PPA to report a broken meter. The woman on the phone advised me not to pay the ticket. She said they would send someone out to investigate my claim and let me know of their decision in writing.

I was about 98% sure I was effed. Because, really, these people are evil and it would be totally easy (and like them) to just tell me that the meter works fine. But then, about two weeks later, I got this:

THEY AGREED WITH ME! I WON!!
It was pretty much the most exciting day ever.

It can be done, folks. At least the administrative side of the PPA is honest.

But I still HATE the stupid PPA ticket writers. They are total jerks.