A twat of Traffic wardens...

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Well, I would if there were any but at the moment it’s freezing. Yes, we’re back to that, the staple of all English conversations – and a blog posting phenomenon; the weather. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve turned to the weather when all else has failed. It must be a few at least, a few dozen at least, dozens and dozens at least. Scores even.

Dozens, scores, baker’s thingies and other odd numerical collectives - now there has be a post in that. I could even manipulate it to go on to talk about animal collective nouns – an ambush (tigers), a ballet (swans), a bloat (hippos), a deceit (lapwings), a twat (traffic wardens). Not today though – by the way I was joking about the twat of traffic wardens. It was just a linking device.

Which brings me to the subject of the day; my poor mother-in-law again and the wrangles she seems to constantly get herself into.

So what’s she been up to this time?

Illegal parking.
Illegal parking?

Yes, illegal parking.

Here’s the whole, sad, silly, sorry tale.

My mother in law, driver of a black Ford, registration MD53 **X was issued with a parking ticket on 30/01/2012 by CEO TR341 (in other words a traffic twatter). She’s 82 and disabled with all sorts of ailments to do with feet, legs, eyes, ears – sometimes the list seems endless. At 2.35 precisely she very, very carefully parked in Regent Road car park, Altrincham, in a disabled parking space and, as she was rushing to get to an appointment with her optician, set the time on her disabled sticker to 3.35 instead of 2.35 in error. Now, it could have been the rushing around, her trembling hands, her eyes, or simply her failing memory and general loss of some sense of reality, but whatever it was it was a genuine mistake - unless it was time travel again.

At 14.44 she was issued with a ticket for reason 87 (yes, reason 87) which is: Parking in a designated disabled person’s parking place without a valid person’s badge in the prescribed manner. Now, my mother-in-law is a genuine disable person (not one of those other ones you see running from their cars doing handstands as they go) and therefore allowed to park in a designated disabled person’s space, she wasn’t without a valid person’s badge and she did display it clearly, the only error she made was a mistake over the time. I assume that this is the prescribed manner the ticket refers to.

On her return to her car at around 3.30 she was very upset to find she had a ticket but sent a cheque off within the hour as (and I quote). “I felt stupid and didn’t want to get into any more trouble and have to pay double as it’s £70. I feel really stupid’. Now in the trade we call that ‘Old ladies and authority syndrome’ and there seems to be no cure.

In my view the only stupid thing she did was to pay up so quickly. If I’d heard about it before she’d paid I would have appealed at the time for ‘reason’s stated above’ - particularly as she was back so quickly and her act was in no way an attempt to get an extended parking period for free as the fine seems to implicitly imply. It was simply an old lady in a rush who made a mistake and who’s now worried about using her disabled badge at all.

Anyway, I’ve written a letter asking for the money to be returned to her. I always write a letter and after all she is a pensioner.

Q. So, why the doodle of that chap in a pith helmet with a jungle on the brim?

A. I think that the car parking authority is taking the pith.

Sorry.