parkwright?

Thursday night I resolved to pay all my Tuckahoe parking tickets the next morning. This task has been at the top of my to-do list for, well (er), months now. As I was relating my resolve to Red, one of those irrational panic thoughts hit me: What will I have to live for if I finish all the things on my to-do list? Because, really, evading the Tuckahoe parking authorities has been giving my life burning meaning.

So when, Friday morning at the kitchen sink, I spied a white ticket fluttering on the windshield of my car I was pissed. My car has been sporting valid inspection stickers for weeks now, so what was the cause this current offense? With an impending sense of doom and dread (present whenever finances and paperwork collaborate against me) I headed out to my car.

To my relief, it wasn't a parking ticket, but an admonition: "PARK WRight." (And--honestly--I was parked right. But perhaps not wright. All I could think was "spell right." But perhaps it wasn't a misspelling of an adverb, but instead an ominously Tolkien-like noun: "Parkwright." But surely my neighbors aren't that eccentric.)

So it was off to Tuckahoe Village Municipality to pay my dues, where no one mocked me when I pulled out my pile of unpaid tickets. They just took my money and wished me a good day. I went to Starbucks to reward myself and to recover my life's meaning--which I found at the counter. They had samples of a new product, and when the barista turned her back I managed to put two more into my pocket.