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So, on the normal rounds the other night, I spot a car in a lot that appears to have no permit. The permits here are big orange hang-tags that are about the size of a hotel “do not disturb” door hanger, are neon orange like a life vest and hang from the rearview mirror, hard to miss, easy to spot, I think you’d agree.
Inching in for a closer look, there appears to be nothing hanging from the mirror, but the car seems to look familiar for the lot so I pull out my trust ol’ maglite. And by trusty, I mean “trusty”, this thing’s survived freezing cold, blistering heat, being dropped into a storm sewer, falling off the truck several times because I left it on the bed, and on one occasion it was physically DRIVEN OVER by said truck (a Ford F450 Super Duty, not exactly “dainty”) and the darn thing just keeps right on working! But enough of the stealth product placement, I pull out the light and start checking all the corners of the interior as people are want to leave their permits lying on the seat, or on the floor, or the dash, or buried under mountains of CD’s, cigarette packs and fast food bags in the center console, or tucked in map pocket, or any one of a thousand permutations thereof.
Well, I hit the jackpot, under a pile of loose paper junk on the passengers seat, I can see just a small part of the exposed corner of the permit sticking out. Like I said, they’re road-cone-orange, they attract attention like a theatre marquee. Okay, problem solved, right? But wait! There’s more! Said loose pile of papers, well, upon closer inspection, they appear to be copies of said permit. He clearly stuck his permit in a photocopier or computer scanner somewhere and ran off a half-dozen copies, they just haven’t been cut out yet. Like most forgeries, they weren’t very good, print lines were clearly visible and the hue had changed from bright neon orange to a dull, muddy, burnt orange instead. Crayola probably would call it “Raw Umber”. So, while it turns out he has a valid permit after all, he also has several fakes.
Too bad for him, according to lot rules, the fakes supersede anything else. So he got towed in. Ironic, had he just taken more care in hanging up his real permit, we probably would never have caught him. Ah, karma is best when the results are tangible and expensive.
He had to surrender his stack of fakes before the car was released in the morning, “But I was going to give those to my friends!” he whined as he forked them over. We were strangely unmoved by this plea. Hey, look on the bright side, we just saved your friends a whole lot of money! Had they actually used one of those sorry excuses for a fake, they'd end up right next to you! How charitable that you've decided to take the bullet for the rest of them like this!
Well, he would’ve got away with it, had it not been for us meddling kids.
Inching in for a closer look, there appears to be nothing hanging from the mirror, but the car seems to look familiar for the lot so I pull out my trust ol’ maglite. And by trusty, I mean “trusty”, this thing’s survived freezing cold, blistering heat, being dropped into a storm sewer, falling off the truck several times because I left it on the bed, and on one occasion it was physically DRIVEN OVER by said truck (a Ford F450 Super Duty, not exactly “dainty”) and the darn thing just keeps right on working! But enough of the stealth product placement, I pull out the light and start checking all the corners of the interior as people are want to leave their permits lying on the seat, or on the floor, or the dash, or buried under mountains of CD’s, cigarette packs and fast food bags in the center console, or tucked in map pocket, or any one of a thousand permutations thereof.
Well, I hit the jackpot, under a pile of loose paper junk on the passengers seat, I can see just a small part of the exposed corner of the permit sticking out. Like I said, they’re road-cone-orange, they attract attention like a theatre marquee. Okay, problem solved, right? But wait! There’s more! Said loose pile of papers, well, upon closer inspection, they appear to be copies of said permit. He clearly stuck his permit in a photocopier or computer scanner somewhere and ran off a half-dozen copies, they just haven’t been cut out yet. Like most forgeries, they weren’t very good, print lines were clearly visible and the hue had changed from bright neon orange to a dull, muddy, burnt orange instead. Crayola probably would call it “Raw Umber”. So, while it turns out he has a valid permit after all, he also has several fakes.
Too bad for him, according to lot rules, the fakes supersede anything else. So he got towed in. Ironic, had he just taken more care in hanging up his real permit, we probably would never have caught him. Ah, karma is best when the results are tangible and expensive.
He had to surrender his stack of fakes before the car was released in the morning, “But I was going to give those to my friends!” he whined as he forked them over. We were strangely unmoved by this plea. Hey, look on the bright side, we just saved your friends a whole lot of money! Had they actually used one of those sorry excuses for a fake, they'd end up right next to you! How charitable that you've decided to take the bullet for the rest of them like this!
Well, he would’ve got away with it, had it not been for us meddling kids.
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