Dear City of Minneapolis Department of Petty Annoyances,
This is the 4th time I've visited your fair city over the past year and a half. I've come to appreciate your non-threatening downtown and I make a point of patronizing a local restaurant every trip. (And by that I mean eating there, not pretending to be nice to it.)
Last night I pulled into a metered parking space in weather usually reserved for a Morgan Freeman penguin voiceover. I took two bucks out of my wallet and walked a half block to one of your machines. Let me reiterate here: the wind chill was reported to be -20 degrees.
When I got to the machine to pay, the machine informed me that it only takes coins and credit cards. I was either out of silver or it was frozen to my thighs so I was forced to remove a life-saving glove and pull out my AmEx.
After the 3rd consecutive dipping of my card (and there should be NO dipping in this weather) the machine informed me that it was incapable of reading the stripe. Seeing as how snow blindness makes most any reading difficult, I'm not surprised. But unless your meter maids are riding around on polar bears, I'm sure we can all agree not to prosecute, yes?
So imagine my surprise after pumping money into your lethargic winter economy (talk about frozen assets) to find a parking citation on my windshield. How did it even get there? Did a snow owl screech down from a nearby building like delivering a letter to Harry Potter?
And $42? Is that because the city needs money for the cleanup and removal of yeti droppings?
I'm hereby informing you that I will not be sending you $42. I'm keeping 1 dollar of that total for every degree below comfortable that I was subjected to on this trip.
You owe me 20 bucks.
