The Worst Day Ever, Part 1

Friday was a bad day. Like most bad days, Oak Park's parking department had something to do with it.

If you've spent any amount of time in the OP, you know that parking in this town is a bitch. Millions and millions of park spots all over the place, and you're not allowed to park in any of them.

Over the years, I have called the parking department in an effort to find solutions to various problems. I've left somewhere around a dozen messages in my lifetime, and not a single call has ever been returned. On the very rare occasion that I am able to reach someone in their offices, I'd say that solutions to my problems have been offered about half of the time.

There's a lot which I park in which has one of those "pay and display" machines. Basically, you buy a debit card from the village, and then when you park, a machine takes money off of your card, and prints up a receipt to put in your windshield. If the machine doesn't work, you're supposed to call a number posted on the machine. Personally, I have to call the number so frequently that I have it programmed into my phone under B for "Bitches."

On Friday, the machine would not let me insert my card. So I called the number, just like I was supposed to, and left a message with my info, never expecting to hear from them again.

But 45 minutes later, I actually got a call. Some dude said that I left a message on his supervisor's voice mail, and wanted the details. I told him the situation, and he said, "I don't know... We've only gotten one other call about this."

I was thinking to myself, "How many calls do you usually get about this? Don't two calls usually indicate a problem?" But I didn't say that. Instead, I politely informed him that every other car parked in that lot had their debit card placed in the windshield, indicating that they couldn't get the machine to work either.

"Well," he responded in the tone of a parent scolding his child, "everyone should have been told not to do that, because the heat will warp the cards, and then they won't work at all."

The balls on this fracker! I could not believe that he was giving me shit about this! One thing that has become abundantly clear in recent years is that Oak Park does not see parking as a public service. It's straight up business to them. And this is how you treat your customers?

So I said, "Well, the reason they weren't told was probably because the parking department is really bad at communication."

Then he audibly sighed, and said he'd look into it. Yeah, you go do that, bitch.

I hate Oak Park!