When someone complained to President John Kennedy about some perceived grave injustice, he sometimes offered this suggestion: “Don’t get mad: get even!” Think of the times when someone did something to you that required justice, if not revenge. When Victoria was just a toddler, she had already become an arbiter of right and wrong. She had developed and applied a set of rules of conduct for her friends and family.

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These included such basics as “Thou shalt not play with my toys without prior permission.” Another rule was, “I can wear the same sweatshirt as many days in a row as I wish.”

In case there were any questions, Victoria patiently explained that there was one overriding rule: “I set the rules and everyone else follows them.”  What could be simpler than that?

Fast forward two and a half decades, and Victoria is now a parole officer. Working in an office in Brooklyn, she loves her job largely because she gets to set some of the basic rules, and her parolees have little choice but to obey them.

But then, one day, the unthinkable occurs. Unable to find a parking spot, Victoria left her car blocking the driveway belonging to the agency. Minutes later, it had been towed. To such a maker – and follower – of rules, this should have been an open-and-shut case. Just as so many others had been found guilty of breaking her rules, had she violated one of the City’s parking regulations? Still worse, she would now have to waste hours going to the City Impound, and end up paying a hefty fine.

Needless to say, she was enraged. There was absolutely no way she could have been legally towed since the driveway she had been blocking belonged to her office. The only possible way the parking enforcement officers would have ticketed her car and had it towed would have been if there had been a complaint from someone in her office. And then too, there was a long-term understanding with the parking enforcement officers that allowed parole officers to block their own driveway when no other parking spot was available.

Victoria spotted a parking enforcement officer and asked her why her car had been towed.

“That was your car?”

“Yeah.”

“We had a complaint that it was blocking the driveway from some guy I never saw before.”

“You saw him?”

“Yeah, a short fat guy with a Hitler moustache.”

“Holy shit!”

“You know him?”

Victoria was shaking her head in disgust. “Everybody knows ‘the schmuck!’” He’s a supervisor at another parole office. So, he made the complaint?”

“Yeah, and he flashed his credentials.”

“So, no one checked to see whose car was blocking him?”

“I don’t think so. He was in a big hurry. He just said there was a car blocking him from getting out of the driveway and told us to have it towed. Otherwise, I woulda come inside and asked the owner to move it so he could get out.”

“Thanks,” said Victoria.

Then she went inside and asked around. No one knew her car had been towed. Her coworkers expressed outrage. All of them, at one time or another had parked where Victoria had been.

She called Uber and got to the impound in just fifteen minutes. She paid over a thousand dollars for the parking fine, the tow, and storage. She was back in the office fifteen minutes later.

She found the supervisor’s cell number. When he picked up, she asked, “Is this ‘the schmuck?’”

“Who is this?”

“Can’t you read? Just look at your caller ID.”

“Who are you?”

“You had my car towed.”

“You were parked illegally and you were blocking our driveway.”

“Our driveway? You don’t work here! I do! So, I was blocking my own driveway. “

“What’s your point?”

“Are you kidding me? We have an agreement with the parking enforcement officers. They won’t ticket our cars if we’re blocking our own driveway. This is the first time any of us got a ticket, let alone got their car towed. And you don’t even work here!”

“Well, I was there on official business.”

“Fine. But you walked into our office and get one of our cars towed. Is that why you’re known as ‘the schmuck?’”

“I don’t have to take your insults!”

“Hey, I haven’t even gotten started!”

“What do you want?”

“Well, for starters, did it ever occur to you to ask around to see whose car was blocking you?”

“As a matter of fact, I did!”

“Whom did you ask?”

“I don’t remember his name.”

“You lying son of a bitch! There aren’t any men working at our office. Do you have a vision problem or are you just stupid?”

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

“As soon as I get off the phone, I’m going to make a formal complaint to the head office. Oh, they tell me this one won’t be the first.”

“OK, maybe we can work something out.”

“Here’s the deal: I just wrote out a check for $1,100” to Motor Vehicles. Let’s split it.”

“I don’t know.”

“OK, forget it!”

“Wait!”

“Have your check on my desk in twenty-four hours.” 

In a footnote to the incident, Victoria may well have set the record for getting a car back after it had been towed. She estimated having performed that feat in slightly under an hour.

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New York City has dozens of parking rules, some more strictly enforced than others. Perhaps the rule most honored in the breach is the one prohibiting double-parking.

As it happens, motor vehicles are prohibited from double-parking 24/7. Fire engines, ambulances, police cars, and other emergency vehicles are among the few exemptions. The police also make a commonsense exception for parents who are dropping off or picking up their young children at daycare or school.

In New York City, the largest and most widespread exception the police and parking enforcement officers make to ticketing double-parked cars is on residential streets with alternate parking regulations. For example, if one side of a street is cleaned by Department of Sanitation workers on a Monday from 8:30 am to 10:00 am, then any motor vehicle parked on that side will be ticketed.

Fair enough. Still, parking is usually tight in most neighborhoods even when alternate side parking rules are not in effect. But during the hours when they are, what happens to the owners of cars not fortunate enough to have private garages?

Most of them double-park their cars next to the cars parked on the legal side of these streets. Hey: it’s not for all day. It’s just for an hour and a half while the other side of the street is being cleaned.

No one claims that this double-parking is legal. But the police and parking enforcement officers very rarely ticket these double-parked cars. This would seem like a reasonable – if illegal – accommodation.

One day, Victoria needed to park on a street that was being cleaned. On this block, like most other blocks being cleaned, there was a long line of double-parked cars. Making sure she wasn’t blocking anyone from pulling out, she locked the doors and walked down the block to her friend’s house.

Half an hour later, when she was still a couple of hundred feet from her car, she saw a ticket on her windshield. In fact, hers was the only double-parked car on the entire block that had been ticketed.

Needless to say, Victoria was infuriated. Taking out her phone, she took dozens of photos, already formulating a plan to fight the ticket at a hearing before a referee.

By the day she would appear to fight her case, word had spread and a couple of dozen spectators showed up, ready to cheer her on. In fact, the hearing needed to be moved to the largest room available.

The parking enforcement officer was the only witness called. Under cross examination by Victoria, the officer testified that it was indeed standard practice to accommodate double-parkers on alternate side parking days.

“Did you ticket any other cars on the street that morning, or just my car?”

“I don’t recall any.”

“Please let me help refresh your memory.”

Victoria had arranged to have a large screen brought into the room. One by one, her photos were projected on the screen.

“Officer Gooding, does this street look familiar?”

“Yes.”

“This happens to be the street on which my car was parked the morning of May 16^th, when you gave me a ticket.”

“If you say so.”

“Officer Gooding, how many cars on the block have tickets on their windshields?”

“Just one.”

“Awesome! Now how many of the cars on the block are illegally double-parked?”

“Probably all of them.”

“Officer Gooding. I have just one more question. Why would you ticket just one car, if all of them were illegally double-parked?”

“I would assume that that car was either blocking a fire hydrant or a driveway.”

“Very good! Now please look again at the photos of my car – the ticketed car. Can you tell me if that car is either blocking a fire hydrant or a driveway?”

“It doesn’t appear to.”

“Your honor, I have no more questions. I rest my case.”

The referee sat silently, but she was smiling. Then, addressing the parking enforcement officer she said, “I will be in touch with your supervisor and the higher-ups in your department, and with the city’s Public Advocate. For you, well your trial may have only just begun.”

Then turning to Victoria, she said, “In all my years hearing cases, yours was one of the best prepared defenses I have ever witnessed. Case dismissed!”

Then, addressing Victoria, the referee asked what motivated her to put up such a tremendous fight over a parking ticket.

“Your honor, if I may speak frankly?”

The referee nodded.

“Rules are rules.”