"Welcome to Santa Monica. Go Fuck Yourself."

I got a lovely little note on my car from the Santa Monica Police Department. They care about my safety. They care about your safety.

Obviously, I was endangering lives by parking in an empty parking lot next to the beach of the Pacific Coastal Highway at 2:30 in the morning. The friendly note basically said, "We care about your and your car's safety. Your car is sitting alone in an empty parking lot. We are afraid your car may be a target for vandalism." Basically.

Of course, the attention and concern of the SMPD costs $47.

And it wasn't really a note, so much as a motherfucking parking citation. Evidently, the SMPD likes scavenger hunts. You only need to find one object. If you can find the sign that says, "No parking sunset to sunrise," you win! What do you win? You win the right to pay $47 to SMPD. And if you lose? You have lost, and have to pay $47 to SMPD.

God dammit. "No parking sunset to sunrise?" What is this? Did I somehow park on the set of Fiddler on the Roof? What kind of wording is that? Obviously, someone is quite the creative romantic on the staff of the Santa Monica Municipal Code Production Office. Their speed limit signs should say, "Your speed shall be like that of a wild, galloping stallion--STRICTLY ENFORCED." Their stop signs should say, "0 Velocity Zone."

I'm thinking of appealing. All of this--the appeal, the payment--is done online now. So this gives me some freedom to come up with an appeal. In coming up with an appeal, I must be able to draw on the compassion and sympathy of the person reading my appeal. After all, just about everyone probably says, "I didn't see the sign." Those are the suckers that have to pay the $47.

But what about this? "I was looking for a scenic place to kill myself, but returned to the car because I hadn't taken enough pills. I was really sorry to see the citation on my car. It had already been a pretty bad day." Would that work? Would you abate the penalty?

Or, "I hadn't meant to park there. But I was supposed to go to my family reunion, and I found out everyone there ate Aunt Maybelline's egg salad that had sat in the sun all day--and I found out everyone was dead. So I pulled over at the first parking lot I came to. I didn't think about the sign, what with me being the only person left in my family."

Maybe one of these will work.

Goddamn it. I'll have to pay $47. For a government employee, that's just about a month's pay.