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The Chicago way
Feb. 3rd, 2005 04:29 pmSometimes I feel entirely unqualified to be a grown-up.
This afternoon I was waiting for a phone call from former coworker whom I admire greatly and sometimes have further opportunities to work with. At 3:57 pm I was playing One Last Game of Snood and getting ready to leave, since my parking space outside the office expired at 4 pm. The Dudette calls at 3:58, and we chat pleasantly (eek) and set up a meeting for next week. I grab my coat and run out the door, making it outside by 4:02. There is a cop car flashing its lights in the road, obstructing traffic, next to my car. (It's one of those rush-hour, no parking 4-6 spots.) There are parking spaces both fore and aft of me, but the car is right alongside. I run up to my car, throw my suitcase inside, and slide in the driver's seat while avoiding eye contact with the cop, since I know what is coming. I wonder if through some miracle they're stopped for someone else, or haven't gotten my license number yet, and I can still make it out. I start the car and put it into gear as the car pulls even with mine and the cop in the passenger seat waggles the ticket at me. I give her a please-it's-only-4:02 look, which perhaps does not work because it is now 4:04. I roll down the window. "Take the ticket!" she yells. I'm so startled by this that my foot comes off the clutch and I stall the car. (Nice, Betsy.) Now I'm looking pleading, embarrassed, and probably a little pathetic. She glares at me, looks down her warty, Wicked-Witch-of-West nose (yes, YOU, rude Chicago cop! I'm talking about YOU!) and yells at me again. "It's too late, ma'am. You have to take the ticket. Take it!" I sigh and grab the ticket, and then she snaps, "Don't snatch it from me!" Now I'm startled and mad. I ask her, "What?" and she repeats herself--but meaner, and louder. "Don't you SNATCH that TICKET from me!"
I'm stunned and can't think of a comeback. I want to imply that she's acting like my mother, except I can't pull it off because I keep thinking my own mother was never that mean or that ugly. I just close my eyes and start the car again. Her partner in the driver's seat looks impatient and drives off.
After I left, I decided I should have asked her if snatching the ticket away was illegal and if she was going to give me a ticket for that, too, but
(a) I didn't think about it until I was a half-mile away, and
(b) she probably would have.
I checked my ticket closely for the circle labeled, "Sassing a Cop," and I couldn't find one, but I'm sure she could have written one in. I'm better off with just the one: a fifty-dollar ticket, served with a side of extreme rudeness, and a splash of mud on my newly-clean car.
At the red light at the end of the block, while I am still stunned and not yet sniveling, a little old woman totters off the curb and starts to cross in front of me. She bends over, picks up a very shiny penny, and totters back to he sidewalk. Then she turns toward me, grins, and holds it up for me to see. I smile back at her, trying to look encouraging, and for some reason this is the event that makes me start bawling.
I snivel and sob all the way home, interrupted once by a man in a blue Civic who toots his horn and pulls up alongside me to wave. Is he waving because I'm crying? Because I let him in? Perhaps because I cut him off? Should I be encouraged or embarrassed? It's too much for me to decode in that state. I arrive home and let Nimbus get to work on me, curling up by my lap and purring in that way he will only do when I am upset. He is still at my feet as I type; apparently he doesn't feel I've had enough of his ministrations yet. I think after this I will write a letter to include with my payment, outlining the startling rudeness of my cop.
***
I am proud to say that there are no more folding chairs, 2x4 plywood beams, or children's tricycles marking "dibs" on parking spaces on my street. In fact, there were only two dibs-ed spots even in the height of the snow, and we were all pretty good about clearing the snow. (By "we," I should note that Craig did almost all of the sidewalk cleanup, and I was responsible only for digging out my car. But if you live here, you know what that was like.) Trying to find a parking space in front of my school today, and later in front of my office, I see that some people are maintaining their reserved spots, although it is 42 degrees and it hasn't snowed in at least eight days.
I understand at the height of the snow storms why some people would call dibs on the spaces they cleared, since it gives them at least a teensy measure of control against the frustrating and scary weather. It's inefficient, however, for you to call dibs on a space that you will not use again until you come home from work, when I am trying to find a parking space I will only use for two hours while I make my presentations. However, since I have no way to know who is coming back when, and who might be holding a space for the little old lady who might slip and fall going over a snowdrift, I try to be patient in the first couple days post-blizzard. Eight days later, I start to think some people are faking. The snow is melting, spots are opening up, and you could clear that drift just by looking at it funny. Do you really need to make a big production of stopping your car and dragging the sawhorse out, or are you just doing it because you're mean and petty and know that (even though it's ILLEGAL) the screechy old cop will not ticket you because she's busy nailing me for being two minutes late?
I don't do dibs, because I am an able-bodied young woman who is capable of clearing more than one parking spot for herself in the course of a blizzard, and because I think it's inefficient. At this point, I would be ready to disregard other people's dibs, except that there is still enough snow for some vile lunatic to come out and make me pay for violating the code. I think it's foolish and lazy, however, to continue dibsing at this point, and frustrated because the Mayor has given it his tacit approval and no one is busting these folks for blocking the street.
***
There are beautiful people in this city--sweet old women who want me to cheer with them when they find good luck, and stellar clinicians like the Dudette who want to work proactively to help kids. There are also people who are small, petty, and ugly--the cop, the scary man who buried thistles' car, and whatever Chicago executive is planning to buy his girlfriend a fancy lunch with my fifty bucks. I just get so confused when trying to make up my mind about this city.
This afternoon I was waiting for a phone call from former coworker whom I admire greatly and sometimes have further opportunities to work with. At 3:57 pm I was playing One Last Game of Snood and getting ready to leave, since my parking space outside the office expired at 4 pm. The Dudette calls at 3:58, and we chat pleasantly (eek) and set up a meeting for next week. I grab my coat and run out the door, making it outside by 4:02. There is a cop car flashing its lights in the road, obstructing traffic, next to my car. (It's one of those rush-hour, no parking 4-6 spots.) There are parking spaces both fore and aft of me, but the car is right alongside. I run up to my car, throw my suitcase inside, and slide in the driver's seat while avoiding eye contact with the cop, since I know what is coming. I wonder if through some miracle they're stopped for someone else, or haven't gotten my license number yet, and I can still make it out. I start the car and put it into gear as the car pulls even with mine and the cop in the passenger seat waggles the ticket at me. I give her a please-it's-only-4:02 look, which perhaps does not work because it is now 4:04. I roll down the window. "Take the ticket!" she yells. I'm so startled by this that my foot comes off the clutch and I stall the car. (Nice, Betsy.) Now I'm looking pleading, embarrassed, and probably a little pathetic. She glares at me, looks down her warty, Wicked-Witch-of-West nose (yes, YOU, rude Chicago cop! I'm talking about YOU!) and yells at me again. "It's too late, ma'am. You have to take the ticket. Take it!" I sigh and grab the ticket, and then she snaps, "Don't snatch it from me!" Now I'm startled and mad. I ask her, "What?" and she repeats herself--but meaner, and louder. "Don't you SNATCH that TICKET from me!"
I'm stunned and can't think of a comeback. I want to imply that she's acting like my mother, except I can't pull it off because I keep thinking my own mother was never that mean or that ugly. I just close my eyes and start the car again. Her partner in the driver's seat looks impatient and drives off.
After I left, I decided I should have asked her if snatching the ticket away was illegal and if she was going to give me a ticket for that, too, but
(a) I didn't think about it until I was a half-mile away, and
(b) she probably would have.
I checked my ticket closely for the circle labeled, "Sassing a Cop," and I couldn't find one, but I'm sure she could have written one in. I'm better off with just the one: a fifty-dollar ticket, served with a side of extreme rudeness, and a splash of mud on my newly-clean car.
At the red light at the end of the block, while I am still stunned and not yet sniveling, a little old woman totters off the curb and starts to cross in front of me. She bends over, picks up a very shiny penny, and totters back to he sidewalk. Then she turns toward me, grins, and holds it up for me to see. I smile back at her, trying to look encouraging, and for some reason this is the event that makes me start bawling.
I snivel and sob all the way home, interrupted once by a man in a blue Civic who toots his horn and pulls up alongside me to wave. Is he waving because I'm crying? Because I let him in? Perhaps because I cut him off? Should I be encouraged or embarrassed? It's too much for me to decode in that state. I arrive home and let Nimbus get to work on me, curling up by my lap and purring in that way he will only do when I am upset. He is still at my feet as I type; apparently he doesn't feel I've had enough of his ministrations yet. I think after this I will write a letter to include with my payment, outlining the startling rudeness of my cop.
***
I am proud to say that there are no more folding chairs, 2x4 plywood beams, or children's tricycles marking "dibs" on parking spaces on my street. In fact, there were only two dibs-ed spots even in the height of the snow, and we were all pretty good about clearing the snow. (By "we," I should note that Craig did almost all of the sidewalk cleanup, and I was responsible only for digging out my car. But if you live here, you know what that was like.) Trying to find a parking space in front of my school today, and later in front of my office, I see that some people are maintaining their reserved spots, although it is 42 degrees and it hasn't snowed in at least eight days.
I understand at the height of the snow storms why some people would call dibs on the spaces they cleared, since it gives them at least a teensy measure of control against the frustrating and scary weather. It's inefficient, however, for you to call dibs on a space that you will not use again until you come home from work, when I am trying to find a parking space I will only use for two hours while I make my presentations. However, since I have no way to know who is coming back when, and who might be holding a space for the little old lady who might slip and fall going over a snowdrift, I try to be patient in the first couple days post-blizzard. Eight days later, I start to think some people are faking. The snow is melting, spots are opening up, and you could clear that drift just by looking at it funny. Do you really need to make a big production of stopping your car and dragging the sawhorse out, or are you just doing it because you're mean and petty and know that (even though it's ILLEGAL) the screechy old cop will not ticket you because she's busy nailing me for being two minutes late?
I don't do dibs, because I am an able-bodied young woman who is capable of clearing more than one parking spot for herself in the course of a blizzard, and because I think it's inefficient. At this point, I would be ready to disregard other people's dibs, except that there is still enough snow for some vile lunatic to come out and make me pay for violating the code. I think it's foolish and lazy, however, to continue dibsing at this point, and frustrated because the Mayor has given it his tacit approval and no one is busting these folks for blocking the street.
***
There are beautiful people in this city--sweet old women who want me to cheer with them when they find good luck, and stellar clinicians like the Dudette who want to work proactively to help kids. There are also people who are small, petty, and ugly--the cop, the scary man who buried thistles' car, and whatever Chicago executive is planning to buy his girlfriend a fancy lunch with my fifty bucks. I just get so confused when trying to make up my mind about this city.
