Crime Wave

There’s something about me and traffic wardens…

I parked in the patrolled car park yesterday, put my money in the machine and ended up with no ticket and no money back. I told the lady behind me about the problem, but thinking of those to come I used my whiteboard marker to write neatly on the glass, the date, time and the message, “eats money, doesn’t give tickets.”

I had barely finished when a traffic warden arrived and demanded to know what I was doing. He wasn’t interested in my lost money. He was concerned about the “vandalism.” He told me not to leave and got to work on his radio.

Since he was marching up and down, pretty much ignoring me I got a post-it note from the boot of my car and wrote the same message on it. I then rubbed out the whiteboard marker message and stuck the post-it note in its place.

Within minutes there were police car sirens everywhere and four police cars arrived in the car park with seven policemen, all to deal with little old me. Not far behind followed a Scientific Support vehicle. A small crowd gathered, attracted by all the flashing blue lights.

The officers gathered round the traffic warden and the scale of the offence was explained. One of the policemen then came over to me and asked what I’d been doing. I explained that the machine had eaten my money and not given a ticket, so I’d put a note on it to warn others.

The policeman took the note from the machine, conferred with his colleagues and they all disappeared without another word to me. They didn’t even ask my name. The traffic warden said nothing either, but just stomped off to look for another victim.

I didn’t get my money back, but on the positive side, where do you get that much entertainment for a pound these days?