Civil disobedience

Okay, I know living in this City, this happens to people every single day. But it didn't happen to anybody, it happened to me. So listen up. :-)

I haven't been having a good week. Okay, I know, it's nothing catastrophic, but it's like a thousand scratches that eventfully draws blood. Earlier this week, I rode my motorcycle into work. That night as I was going home, I put my key in the ignition, turned it. Nothing. The battery was completely dead. As I hadn't done since I first got the bike three years ago, it has a "park" known, also known affectionately by many as the "battery drainer" mode. In order, the key has four modes, on, off, lock and park. On is of course on, off is of course off, lock is to lock the steering column so no can move it, and park is to keep the lights on so people see it and don't accidentally hit it. It's not meant to be used for any length of time, and as you can imagine, yes, it will drain your battery dead. And in the infinite wisdom of the designers, it's way too easy to do. Get to work, park the bike, turn it off, turn it one more to lock it, and if you're not careful or not paying attention (which apparently was exactly what I did), a little extra nudge, don't notice the dim lights are on in the bright sunny day, walk away, and bye bye power.

I ended up spending about 3 hours rectifying the situation. It worked about as smoothly as possible, but still one pain in the butt. I took the bus home, got in my car, and drove down. No traffic coming back in, got there in 20 minutes, found a parking about 50 feet from my bike (thankfully with everyone leaving work!), haul in on my own power over to it, had to remove the seat with two allen wrenches (one big pain of the bike), jumped it, got it started. Put everything back together, got on the bike, drove it to the Castro. Parked it there, got onto the subway, had a lovely conversation with the woman next to me who's son was doing 25 years for attempted manslaughter, got back to my car, drove it to the Castro. Since a movie just got out at the Castro Theater, found easy parking right by my bike, drove it up the hill. Changed into shorts, walked back down the hill, had a lovely dinner, had a much needed beer after all that, then drove the car home. All is right with the world, although I should put the battery on the charger! (I had a reason for the convoluted order: the buses don't run so frequently down the hill, and it was easier than dragging my bike stuff around [helmet, jacket, boots, et al]!)

For you flatlanders asking me why I didn't just call a friend to come give me a jump? None of my friends in the City own a car, silly. It's San Francisco, not LA.

Oh, and my hard drive crashed.

But I digress. And vented. Well, I'm not quite done yet.

So yesterday, I also rode my bike into work. Last night as I was coming home, I found a parking ticket on my bike. I paid the meter. Apparently, the wrong one. (For motorcycles, they have consolidated meters for multiple spots. You put in your spot then put in your money. Apparently I selected the wrong one. If there's something I despise the most, it's a bad user interface.) And thus I got a ticket.

Now I know, I know, people get tickets every day here. "Just pay the ticket," my friend told me. Yes, I'll pay the ticket. But it doesn't mean I won't protest. (At least not just the ticket.)

It's the principal of the matter. Parking your motorcycle is really cheap. It costs 25 cents an hour to park downtown. Getting a ticket is really expensive. It costs $50.00 to get a ticket downtown. Yes, 200 times the hourly rate. No exaggeration.

For example, several months ago I got a ticket for parking my bike in the Castro. The meter was broken. Actually it was accepting money just fine, just the indicator that says whether you paid or not was broken. Five bikes parked there, and so I came back, there's five parking tickets on five bikes. Several people sitting out in front of the Castro Country Club told me, they saw the meter maid come by, they told her they just saw me put money in the meter, and she couldn't figure out why 5 people wouldn't pay the 10 cents an hour to park there and instead all five bikes risked the $40 fine that would ensue. But you know, she's not paid to think. She's got a union. :-)

And doth I protest. I sent in a protest with a nasty worded letter. Basically because this woman wouldn't press a button and instead went to the effort of writing five tickets, that means five people had to protest their tickets, someone had to go out and check if the meter was working that day, and the system had to be clogged, and thus that's why the tickets have to be 400 times (no exaggeration!) the hourly rate to park there.

The ticket was dismissed. But not for three months, because system was so clogged with protesters.

So what's a guy to do? I have a piece of civil disobedience that each and every tax-paying citizen of this city can do.

On the back of the envelope, there's a perforated part that reads:

(Please detach at PERF before mailing.)
IF YOU WISH TO PROTEST THIS CITATION DO NOT USE THIS ENVELOPE
(SEE BACK OF ORIGINAL CITATION FOR REQUEST FOR REVIEW FORM)
Whatever you do, do not detach it before mailing. It makes absolutely no sense. It doesn't have any receipt information, anything on it particular to you. No citation number, nothing.

Send a message on it if you wish. Why is this here? Why do I have to remove it? Something about this system doesn't make sense, and I'm protesting it until you change it. Let it mess up their whole system. Let them irk them so much that someone paying their ticket didn't follow one of their silly rules.

In fact, after dutifully tore it off, just because it was the rules, I taped mine back on and wrote next to the instructions, "I don't feel like it." I feel much better now.

What are they gonna do, give me another ticket? I'm already paying for this one. :-)