Parking Problems

A couple of weeks ago Himself and I headed down to Toronto to spend the day shopping and dining out with friends.

Our new routine is to park at the Royal York subway station and leave the car safe and sound.  I hate downtown driving and parking is expensive and sometimes hard to find.  We had a helluvatime with the parking meter, but managed, and off we went to have a super time.

We stayed the night in our usual 'suite' (Thank you, Wendy) and spent the morning with "The Globe and Mail": Himself and Wendy do the crossword together (it's a sister-wife thing and works great) and I worked a couple of the other sections.

Quite incredibly, we couldn't believe the timing, in the Drive section, Andrew Clark wrote an article and shared his observations about parking meters: Click here to read "The Plague of Parking Meters"

I immediately wrote to the editor to share our story:

"I do apologize, Mr. Clark, as it was me at the Royal York subway station parking machine yesterday. I am from Duntroon, although on Planet Earth, we don’t have those machines (yet).  You may have noticed that I did let others more familiar with the routine go ahead (as I would let them ‘through’ on the golf course). I needed a ticket valid from 1 pm to 9 pm: 5 hours at $1 per half hour and then $3 flat for 6 pm to 7 am. Clear as mud. With spectacles firmly in place and stepping back after twice cancelling the transaction, my husband and I yet again deferred to a harried woman smugly brandishing her credit card. She muttered to herself in encouragement, “OK, magnetic strip down and to the right … press hours/time required … press 1400, press 1600 … 1700 … 1800 ... 7... 8 ... press, press, press, … what? $34!? But I’ll be back around 6 pm, TODAY!”  She grabbed the ticket and ran off declaring that she’ll claim it to expenses. We got away with only $4 overcharge and could have parked through to 9 am. The machine's 24 hour clock stopped at 1800 and then leapt forward to 7. We considered the con-undrum after boarding the east bound train; although we railed against it, we had it all in line by our destination."


Sadly, I was brushed off the editing room floor and dumped straight into the round file.  Stupid me, in my excitement I did not see that letters to the editor must be 150 words and I submitted 230.  Maybe next time.