“Your problem is not my problem.” He says to me. I look at my stupid parking ticket that’s bigger than a notecard I could use on a test in junior year. Are you kidding me? Act a bit of a professional kid. The ticket is uneven from where I tore it out of the machine less than half an hour ago.
“It’s your job to make it your problem. Why do I have to pay a three-dollar parking fee when my car was never even in park? All I did was drop a friend off and it wasn’t even long enough to warrant taking my foot off the brake to put it into park.”
“It’s the airport rules, not mine.”
“So what will you do if I don’t pay it?”
“Sir, you’re holding up the line.”
It’s seven in the morning. There’s no way these people behind me, also dropping off passengers, think the fee is fair.
“Tow me.”
“It’s only three dollars.”
“What are you going to do if I don’t pay it? Kick me out? I know you don’t get paid enough to be so arrogant. At your pay grade, all they do is throw you a uniform and tell you not to unionize.”
“The gas from the tow truck will probably be more than the parking pass costs.”
“Yeah? How about we find out for sure.”
The attendant slouched in his chair and sighed. He peered over the computer looking at the line.
“This is a third of my hourly.” He stared back at me and hit the button. The barrier blocking me had left, but so did my dignity. I felt bad. I gazed a thousand yards my entire ride home. My eyes burnt a line into the road that the guilt used to follow me home.