Real Life | 24 October 2009

You couldn’t make it up

If I’m ever stuck for a plot for a dark and twisted dystopian sci-fi novel I must remember to open my front door and start a conversation with a traffic warden. You are always guaranteed a richly surreal and deeply macabre experience when you engage with the bizarre regime of local authorities which charge people to park outside their own homes.

The other day I went out to remonstrate with a warden over a fine that had been issued to my father for parking slightly to the left of the correct bay for visitors. He’d only been there a few minutes, and as the visitor bay was empty it was obviously an honest mistake. But of course we know that is not how it works. A little moped appeared from nowhere, a man in black descended and a yellow envelope was placed on the windscreen. No matter that my father was still walking away from the car and could easily have been told he was in the wrong place. No matter that he had bought a ticket. No matter that the road in question is a quiet street miles from any shops, with rows and rows of parking to spare. No matter that I pay £200 for a permit to park my car there and £2.10 an hour for visitors. No matter. The little moped came and the man in black got off and the yellow envelope was tucked inside the wiper.

But that wasn’t the surreal bit. The surreal bit came when I ran out of the house to try to argue with him about the brutality of being charged £60 for being a few inches to the wrong side of a sign in an empty street miles from anywhere.