It Hasn't Even Been Two Weeks! or "It's Annoying!" or A A F!

This afternoon at 2:00, I came across three $10,000 parking kiosks on Warren Street that were out of service -- the two in the 500 block and the one in the 600 block.  They had all been installed ten or eleven days ago, and they were all showing the same message on their screens.

On the busiest day of the week downtown, with parking spaces on Warren and its side streets difficult to come by, three $10,000 digital kiosks were useless. I had a hunch that all 16 kiosks were also broken and useless.

So, two hours later, I checked three kiosks on lower Warren -- one of the two in the 300 block and the two in the next two blocks west. All three of them were not able to allow anyone to pay for a parking space. They all offered the same message. There must have been a complete system failure, a problem that never arose with our parking meters.

(Curiously, there is no parking kiosk in the first block of Warren.  What's up with that?)

Soon after I noticed the second useless kiosk, I happened upon a friend who was helping a friend of theirs trying to figure out how to scan the parking sign nine feet off the ground almost directly across the street from City Hall.  "Hey, Bill," my car-free friend said, "do you know how to do this?" 

I laughed and said that I hadn't scanned a sign yet and that I never would in Hudson.  I did suggest this to the poor woman who couldn't cope with the digital nonsense, the same thing I suggest to anyone who will listen:  "Don't pay for your space.  Don't bother to scan that sign.  If you get a ticket, just appeal it and say that you didn't have your phone with you.  They can't deny your appeal.  They can't prove you had your phone."

"Yeah," she said, "that's a great idea.  They can't make us use our phones."  With that, my friend got her friend's phone to scan the sign, and they signed up for two hours of parking. Oh, well.  I tried.

Just before I left, as they were still trying to complete the transaction, I said, "Imagine how far along you would be by now if there had been a parking meter here for you to drop a quarter or two into.  This is a waste of your time, isn't it?"

My friend's friend replied, "Yeah, it is.  It's just annoying."  

"You said it," I hollered as I walked away.  "Annoying A F!  A A F!"