2 Inkerman Street
Mosman, NSW
2088
Australia

19 March 2006

City of Santa Monica
Parking Citations
PO Box 515213
Los Angeles
CA, 90051-6513
USA

Re: Citation No: 042113949

My wife and I have just returned from a fantastic trip to the US…. A week skiing in Telluride and two weeks in Aspen. Knockout snow and a most memorable holiday… poured loads of money into your great economy.

On our way home we decided to lay over in LA overnight so that we could visit the Getty Museum. We stayed at the airport and picked up a Budget car, a PT Cruiser Lic 5SIR595 – not one of the better outputs of the US auto industry but good enough for our purpose.

Drove out to the Getty in the morning and were basically blown away by the place. Sydney Opera House? Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Pyramids? Forget them. The Getty murders them. It should be the First wonder of the modern world and an all time eighth.  This is a major league building. Awesome. It gives us a new reason to visit LA… we eliminated Rodeo Drive, Disney Land and Universal Studios years ago.

Driving back to drop the car we decided to find somewhere nice to eat in Santa Monica since we were facing a long United Airlines flight home later that night fuelled mainly by mini packets of pretzels. We went for a walk first in Venice Beach to check out the alternatives who inhabit it and to marvel at the clouds of pot smoke which always seem to cast an endearing haze over the place. Since it was getting dark and time was running out we then looked for a restaurant back in Santa Monica. Cruising the streets, we spotted Buca di Beppo which looked buzzy and promising.  Imagine my excitement when not only had I found an interesting eating place but I also a vacant parking spot just along the road from it. You beauty! The gods really are smiling on us we thought. An extra benefit was the meter into which we poured the remainder of our quarters. No longer would I have a pile of useless shrapnel littering my bedside table for another year back in Australia.

Buca di Beppo was great. The small serving of spaghetti and meat balls that I ordered  (surely one of the great American signature dishes?) turned out to contain enough food to eliminate world hunger all on its own. Honestly, I tried really really hard to eat it all but just wasn’t man enough for it.  Besides, I also had to help my wife with her small serving of salmon and vegetables.  By the way, if you want to pass on my name and contact details to the President I would be happy to help him out with some suggestions about how to deal with the twin problems of obesity and declining world fish stocks.

Groaning from our snack, we paid up and headed for our rented wheels  The mighty PT Cruiser. Cherry coloured.

Shock horror! A bloody ticket!

I quickly realised where we had gone wrong.  We didn’t notice the red paint on the kerb stones at the spot we had parked in. It was dark, so the red paint was not easy to see, and if we had seen it I would have meant nothing to us in any case.  Doubly painful was that we had paid for the parking spot of the car which now occupied the space behind us.  Bugger! Bugger! Bugger!  You should have heard me carrying on. My wife, always quick to put the blame on me for every damn thing that goes wrong, told me it was all my fault and that if I had paid better attention this would never have happened.  I am sorry to say I just snapped. Not far from where we were parked there was a fire hydrant. Out of sheer frustration I laid into it with my boot. Please don’t hold this against me but I think a knocked the paint around a bit. Shit! Have I just admitted a category three felony? Anyway I suffered a badly stubbed toe so got my punishment summarily so to speak. I was so upset that I almost left my meatballs on the sidewalk. Anyway if I hadn’t put the boot into the hydrant I would have put it into her and with my luck that night I would have got caught and done a stretch.

The flight back to Sydney was 14 hours, most of which was spend fighting with my wife about that citation and nursing my sore toe.

I don’t know why I am sharing all this personal detail with you guys; it’s just that… well, can you believe it, we are heading for divorce over this wretched ticket… unless there is anything you can do for us that is.

Alan Phillips
Email: alanph@ozemail.com.au

PS About the fire hydrant thing.  I am seeing an anger management counsellor about that.