Parking problems are enough to make you move

It has officially happened. I’m old.

I used to think I would know when I was officially old with the arrival of my first gray hair, my first laugh line or the first time a waiter called me “ma’am.” Nope. I know I’m old because my desire to be young, hip and cool has been replaced by the want of a good parking space.

I won’t go shopping at the downtown mall because there’s nowhere to park.

I have let concert tickets go to waste after I circled the venue for a half hour looking for a spot to park my clunker. (OK, they were freebies to a performance of the local chamber orchestra, but the fact remains.)

Now I’m making the ultimate sacrifice … I’m giving up my beloved apartment in one of the trendiest areas of my city because I can no longer stand — or afford — the parking tickets that come with the wrought iron gates and cobblestone courtyard.

Before I moved into this apartment, I had a ticket-free abstract. Not a speeding ticket, parking ticket or other traffic violation to hide.

In a two-year span, however, I have been cited for parking too close to the curb, for parking a foot away from the sidewalk, for parking too long and also for looking at the parking commissioner’s dog the wrong way. Well, it seems like it, anyway.

I’m truly convinced the commishes on duty in my area salivate when they see my car.

I would put money on it — that is, if I had any left after I pay this last round of tickets — that they make a bee-line straight for my car, digital ticket machine in hand, looking for the most expensive offense to nail me with.

One month I’ve forked out nearly as much in parking tickets as I paid in rent.

Shoot, if I had to calculate how much I’ve thrown away paying off the darned things, it would probably exceed the value of the car itself.

Now, that hurts.

It’s not just the parking tickets that finally got the better of me, but the fact that there have been times when there wasn’t a parking spot to be found within four blocks of my home.

So, the excitement of living amongst the “beautiful people” has definitely fizzled. I think of those “sexy singles” now as inconsiderate thieves who steal MY place to park.

I have had to crash at friends’ houses and wait out the party crowd who stuck long past last call to move their cars and mosey on home so that I could finally go to mine.

And the relief that I found a spot would quickly be erased by anger the next morning when I walked to my car, fingers crossed and breath held, to find a parking ticket waving beneath the windshield wiper.

Will I miss my apartment?

If you would have asked me when I first made the decision, I would’ve been a puddle at your feet.

But as I trudged down the street on moving day, my arms shaking from the weight of the moving boxes, and I saw that blasted yellow ticket through the back windshield … not a chance. Yellow makes me feel old.

You can message Rhonda by logging on to www.theoctanelounge.com and clicking the contact link. Wheelbase Media is a worldwide provider of automotive news and feature stories.