When "THIS SUCKS" Says It All!

This past Saturday morning at 10:00, I observed the fellow in the picture for at least 4 minutes as he tried his best to pay for his parking space in front of the DMV building on Warren at 6th.  It was great theater, and I even had a free front row seat on one of the building's marble blocks. After about one minute, I was hoping that Parking Captain David Miller would walk by so that I could invite him to attend the show with me.  (Alas, the chances of seeing Miller, an apparent Hudson resident, walking on a downtown sidewalk out of uniform are slim to zero.  12 years and I've never seen him once.  Too bad for me.)

First, with phone to ear, I saw the fella from Connecticut walk from the front of his parked car to the rear to look at his own license plate.  He then walked back to the pole with the paid parking sign 9 feet off the ground directly in front of his car and then recited his license plate number verbally into his phone, and I am almost certain he was not "talking" to a human being.  Remember, it was a Saturday, so he was likely talking to the AI receptionist who "works" for the Parking App people that the city is in contract with, somewhere in India or Vietnam, no doubt.  Then the visitor from Connecticut waited, phone to ear mostly, staring at the sign up high, occasionally down at the sidewalk, occasionally poking his phone wiith a finger, and always looking annoyed as hell.  Then -- and I am not kidding -- pressing his phone to his ear with a shoulder, he got out his wallet, removed a credit card, returned his wallet to his pocket, and then recited the numbers of his credit card out loud into his phone that he was now holding in one hand.  Then he pushed a few keys or ten on his phone and waited some more, looking at his phone's screen, all the while standing on the sidewalk in front of his car and in front of the lamppost with the sign 9 feet above him.  At about minute 4 of the show (who knows how much of the beginning I missed prior to my arrival!), after not saying thank you or appearing to talk to anyone on his phone, the fella from Connecticut, with his parking payment transaction apparently successfully transacted, finished the call with a push of his finger, put his phone in his pocket, took one last look at his parked car and readied to head across Warren street between two parked cars. 

Before he left the sidewalk, I got his attention by saying in his direction, "That was time well spent, wasn't it"? 

He turned around, surprised to see me, and simply said, "THIS SUCKS," gesturing toward the lamppost with the scannable paid parking sign 9 feet from the concrete sidewalk.  And off he went to spend some money in downtown Hudson, satisfied that his car would not be ticketed.

I wonder if at any one point in the decades that the city had parking meters for its downtown parking spaces that one person ever got so pissed off at a meter after 5 minutes that they said out loud (or thought to themselves), "THIS SUCKS!"

And I wonder how often people visiting Hudson in their automobiles say or think the same thing as the visitor from Connecticut felt last Saturday while trying to pay for his parking space (for one hour of time?).  YOU KNOW IT'S A WHOLE LOT MORE THAN A FEW PEOPLE!

During last week's monthly meeting of the so-called SAFETY Committee, Parking Captain David Miller gave his so-called parking report.  It lasted all of about twenty seconds, with some numbers showing how much money the city's new paid parking system took in during the month of July.  No talk of signs, kiosks, complaints or specific data on how many "meter violation" tickets parking enforcers issued last month.  Everything must still be GOING GREAT with HPD's new system of paid parking.  Everything must NOT SUCK!

Yesterday, I noticed that the meter pole in front of 720 Columbia was still (mostly) missing Miller's two back-to-back $19 or $29 (does it matter?) scannable paid parking signs after they were destroyed 9 or 10 days ago.  And -- to add insult to the stupidity, the waste, and the rampant dysfunction and incompetence all around us now -- across the street at the end of Park Place, the two missing signs (or was it just one?) on the pole in front of HAIRY SITUATIONS still have not been replaced since they went missing at least three weeks ago, possibly four!

Whatever!  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! Excluding, of course, our Parking Captain, David C. Miller, Jr.