About once a week something happens that makes me threaten to move back to Vermont.  Usually, the something that happens is getting stuck in traffic or getting a letter that says I can’t renew my car registration until I pay some kind of excise tax to the City of Boston, which is different than the one I already paid to the State of Massachusetts.  Sometimes I just get annoyed at having to pay exorbitant rent to live in a place where a bagel costs four dollars. Sometimes, such as when my car gets towed, I threaten to move to Los Angeles.

In Boston, like many urban areas, parking is in short supply.  Such short supply, that one of my friends recently paid more than a million dollars for an apartment which came with two parking spaces.  This wouldn’t seem to be too much of an aberration except for the fact that the spaces are located conveniently in the basement of the building, which is located approximately one mile from his actual house.

We have only one parking space at our house, and frequently, for one reason or another, we end up parking our car on the street to make room for a company car, friend, or relative.  One of the risks involved in parking on the street is having someone smash the grill on your car in a way that your fiancé doesn’t notice, but that makes you lose sleep, but the other, central concern, is that of parking tickets.

In my family, there is a specific process that we take the minute we get a parking ticket which involves trying to hide the ticket from one another, in hopes that it will go away on its own. When it fails to go away on its own, we eventually remember it when we get another copy of it in the mail along with a notice that tells us it has increased because of our failure to pay.

Sometimes, such as when you are given a ticket for parking in a space with signs that are confusing, you can dispute the ticket at city hall by engaging in a simple process of taking a half day off of work, going to city hall, sitting on a cold cement bench, and eventually being told by someone who is either a lawyer or not a lawyer that the ticket was properly given.  While you seldom win these contests, they do present a great opportunity to act very off put, or potentially slam your fist in indignation just before you pay the fine.

One big deal in Boston is street cleaning, which is, as far as I can tell, a racket between our fat bozo mayor and some of his cronies who run tow lots, to raise lots of money which they can then spend on going out to dinner.  In a city like Boston, street cleaning makes about as much sense as Sarah Palin and in reality, happens very infrequently, despite the fact that all city streets are wiped clean for 8 hours per month specifically for this purpose.

Once in a great while, during the two four hour periods designated on the signs, an old-looking machine will plod down the street with a brush that sometimes rubs the ground and pushes dirt, pine needles and dunking donuts napkins into the street, where they are blown back against the curb by passing motorists three minutes later. Very occasionally, the same machine drops a stream of water on the pavement, which is probably supposed to turn the dirt into mud, but which instead, leaves a damp skid often associated with dragging a leaking bag of trash across the floor. 

Whether or not the city actually engages in this mission critical activity, the tow companies are there, waiting for the clock to strike the magic hour where they can begin towing unsuspecting excise, income, property, and sales tax payers to a lot, which is usually located 17 miles from their home in a neighborhood where nobody pays any taxes.

Today, when our car was towed we immediately traveled against the flow of traffic to a neighborhood that contained many cars with tinted windows.  When we arrived, the mayor’s buddies informed us that they only accept cash, which we went to fetch at a laundry mat that looked like it would achieve its best use as a crime scene.

Just as my fiancé emerged with sufficient cash to free our Volvo I determined I had forgotten the keys.  Tired, unshowered, and grumpy, we made the 40 minutes schlep back to civilization along with the 400,000 or so poor saps who make this awful commute each day.  An hour and a half of traffic jams may sound like an awful thing to most of you, but I consider it practice for California!