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In the spirit of George Costanza’s epic struggle to come up with “The jerk store called, and they’re all out of you.”  only to be bested by the witty retort, “What difference does it make?  You’re their number one seller.” I bring you the following factual recount of true events.  This isn’t that “based on a true story,” watered down bullshit.  This is a story of triumph.  A story about the little man standing up to the system, a story of drama, intrigue, and culturally uncharacteristic razor sharp, poignantly timed wit the likes of which will probably be seldom seen in the natural world again.  These days there are so few heroes for the youth of our decaying society to emulate.  But in the most unlikely of places we find that even small, partially retarded New Zealanders (clinically proven) that think it’s OK to marry people’s kid sisters can have the heart of a lion.  Some stories deserve to be heard, but there are others that can’t afford not to.  If nothing else, the retelling of this story will serve as a historical record for the children of Steven Reginald Sierra Nevada Rodriguez Shippey, that even when their dad is being a total douche, there was at least one moment in time where he came out on top in a big way.  In much the same way apostles individually brought you the story of Jesus, I bring you the story of Steve Shippey and the Slightly Overweight Downtown Sacramento Parking Ticket Writer Guy or Steve Shippey and the Magic Parking Permit.  And by the way, it’s totally unbiased.

It was an otherwise ordinary brisk April early afternoon in the lower grid area of downtown Sacramento.  There was a slight clumping of foreboding gray clouds in the sky, a reminder to anyone who might have forgotten that this was April, and the rain could begin without warning.  Despite this, clear blue sky filled in the gaps between the clouds lending a bit of optimism to those who hoped that the uninterrupted sunny spring days would soon arrive.  Squirrels playfully taunted each other and frolicked about in the budding branches of maple and oak that arched majestically above the streets and the homes that lined them.  All was well and peaceful on 4th St.  Birds chirped, bees buzzed, and the general happenings of the natural world passed uneventfully.

But then the generally beautiful, subdued sound of another wonderful day was murdered to death when in the distance their appeared a comically compact, cutesy little motorized tricycle thingy with a shell super glued onto the chassis, attempting but failing to lend it a bit more legitimacy as a vehicle that belongs on an actual road.

Inside said joke car was a bicycle helmet wearing driver.  In general, the helmet is a city-mandated safety protocol.  But in this particular case one would have little problem making and winning the argument that the helmet was a… um… lifestyle choice for this gentlemen.  Besides, even in our slumping economy, who takes a job as a motorized meter maid except people who should always wear a helmet, especially when there are so many new jobs opening up at Adalberto’s all over the world.  They say animals have a 6th sense for approaching disaster and/or excessive flatulence.  And at first sight and sound of this encased-headed gentlemen, the squirrels ran in their holes, the birds, totally against their natural tendency, flew south for the summer, the bees just vanished into thin air as they have been doing lately.  Incidentally, what the f***?  I heard that if the bees keep up this mysterious disappearing act, certain flavors of ice cream will no longer be available.  And since now we know the bees disappear whenever parking attendants show up, I think we all know exactly what needs to be done.  That’s right, we as a society need to adopt more conscientious, ecologically mindful lifestyles reducing the negative impact we have on our environment and mitigating, as best we can, the imbalances inherently caused by our existence as a species.  And, of course kill all parking attendants.  But this isn’t a story about polar ice caps or the declining population of giant pandas.  All I know is that when that motorized cart appeared on the horizon, there was one squirrel that couldn’t make it to shelter fast enough, and rather than risk being in close proximity to someone who probably smelled like weird soup, he threw himself in front of the next passing car.  Not under it. We’re talking face first into the grill.  He evaporated.

The parking attendant putt-putted down the street looking for vehicles in violation of the 1 hour parking limit on the roadside.  In his head, he imagined that he was a lion stalking zebra in the Serengeti, and then in another delusion of grandeur, he imagined himself a sniper crawling through the undergrowth, picking off VC in the jungle.  But really, he was just a chubby guy in a helmet whose sole purpose was to work for the man generating revenue for the city, which they would probably then use to buy more helmets and go-karts for chubby drones rather than, say, make a little dent in the California education crisis.  The parking attendant began making his way to a nondescript jeep cherokee parked in front of a nondescript victorian house… except for the fact that this particular house was painted totally pink like a strip club.  In the window of the strip club house, a young woman, perhaps 14 months pregnant saw the parking attendant coming.  This young woman was the wife of our hero and  the someone’s kid sister who married a partially retarded New Zealander even though her parents and brothers taught her better than that.  Being well into her 6th trimester of an inexplicably extended gestation (a situation which confounds the wider Ob/Gyn community to this day), her highly developed women’s intuition kicked in and she knew just where Dog the Bounty Hunter was heading.  Being prone to speaking in ridiculous baby talk, again due to the extended time she had been host to a (parasitic) fetus, she yelled out, “Holy shit babe, you’re about to get a fucking ticket on the jeep.”

In order to lend continuity to the story, I’m gonna stick to the Serengeti reference for at least the next thought.  Now that you know what to expect, we can continue.  Her faithful, brave, oddly shaped headed husband leapt from his perch on a computer chair where he was likely looking at the weirdest internet porn he could possibly find, probably some real sick stuff from Japan, and bolted out the door and down the stairs where he arrived at the Jeep at precisely the same moment that MarioKart did.  Precisely… the same… moment.  (Oh yeah, the Serengeti.  When he leapt, it was like a gazelle.)  A crack of thunder belted out in the sky as their eyes met and they began sizing up one another.  The squirrels poked their heads out of their holes, the birds circled back around en masse, and in a quantum-mechanical bending of time-space or the string-ether or something the bees reappeared, outlined by a faint Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II:  Secret of the Ooze-esque glow, to see what would happen.  In the background of the scene his wife, violating the laws of physics including but not limited to the one about gravity that Newton worked so hard at inventing, walked her pregnant ass down the stairs with her friend to her car where she had the Parking Pass That Laid Waste to 1-Hour Parking Limits.  It was a mythical object, this parking pass, rendering the municipal powers of Helmet Butt (because his face was as dumb as a butt) null and void.  I’ve never seen Harry Potter, I swear.  But I imagine it would be like if there was like this real powerful wizard who like had all these powers but then this other dude like had this piece of paper and then like if the paper were in the car then the wizard wouldn’t have anymore powers.  That’s how it would be like.

Carly (some names have been changed to protect the innocent and people who don’t want the world knowing that they fell for the empty charms of a Kiwi) and Molly (real name) went to the car and began a delicate operation of undermining state authority.  The capacity for deviousness in the pregnant woman should never be underestimated.  And in this case, her years as a member of a large extended family had been a seething cauldron from which she extracted a profound ability to creatively manipulate and bend reality to her whims only added to her ability to affect the outcome of this situation.  Normally in the past, this was referred to as whining.  But in this case, it manifested itself in an act of cunning, deceptive agility.  But for a good cause… the aforementioned undermining of state authority.

The parking guy returned to his hell on wheels to grab his notepad.  Steve, still Kiwi, so still genetically inclined to exhibit some twice displaced trait of British politeness tried to cordially reason with the gentleman as he opened the door to the Jeep, presupposing that his negotiation would be successful.  He asked “Can’t I just move it?”  Only phonetically, with Steve’s accent it probably sounded more like, “Cont aye jest snarl snarl snarl?”  To which the city worker replied, and I quote:

“Can’t, already got it on film.”

At that moment, in a maneuver that can only be compared to the climax of the most intricate ballet in history, that one pregnant lady we talked about earlier walked ninja-like behind the parking attendant and handed Steve the parking pass that she had retrieved from the other car.  In one deft motion, it was almost as if they were two bodies sharing one brain, they transferred the wizard-power-nullifying parking pass from hand to hand and onto the dashboard of the offending vehicle.  All of this took place in a span of time that can not be measured by modern instruments.  And this split-split-split-split second occurrence took place at the same moment the parking attendant was rooting around in his “car” for his ticket book.  Imagine a grizzly bear searching for food in a trash can and you have some idea of the lumbering, growling, sequence of movements that took place.

The attendant then headed to the front of the vehicle to get a VIN, where he was flabbergasted to discover a valid, city issued, mystical Parking Pass That Laid Waste to 1-Hour Parking Limits.  In a cross between words and squeaking he managed to remark in about 4 different ways something to the effect of “Where did that come from?  That wasn’t there before, was it?”  After about 5 minutes of incomprehensible philosophical questioning about the reality of the situation, he looked to Steve hoping to have some light shed on the situation.  He looked at him desperately, waiting for Steve to yield and give permission to keep writing the ticket and restore balance to his existence.  But Steve Shippey, Kiwi, freedom fighter, modern hero, average husband, OK tattooer, total lush, did no such thing.  He just stared back stoically, feeling that he had turned the tables, knowing that he had gone up against the giant and won.  The parking attendant, in one final effort at reasserting his state-granted authority said with less of an interrogative tone, more matter-of-factly, “That wasn’t there before.”

And as he put pen to paper to continue writing the ticket he was struck down with one final death blow when Steve Shippey, soon to be father, New Zealand-American role model, dirtbag, sufferer of a profound case of arrested development, uttered these final words:

“I don’t know, do you got it on film.”

He shut the Jeep door, smiled politely, and gracefully walked away.  Boo…Yah!  Booyah indeed.

Thus ends one of the greatest tales of triumph ever beknownst to man.  It nary wouldnst’ve possible without the teamwork and courage demonstrated by two unlikely individuals.  But since this story is being written by a dude and the girl in question tormented me for my entire childhood, Steve gets most of the credit.  There are about 4,000 different morals in this story.  The squirrel taught us to look both ways before crossing the streets unless your committing an act of mercy suicide.  The author taught us that it’s important to watch classic films that predate your generation (especially ones involving anapsida and ooze) so that you can understand referential material in soon to be classic stories.  Pregnant chicks and foreigners make a great team especially if theres at least a 75% chance that said foreigner is responsible the pregnancy of said chick.  The environment is precious so don’t f*** it up.  So just pick one and tell it to your 4th grade class.  With all the money the state has been spending on bike helmets, I doubt your students have developed the mental muscle or literary analysis skills necessary to elicit a moral from a story on their own, especially one as complicated and sublimely truthful as the one just told.

*In the end, and this is not a joke, the parking attendant walked away defeated.  But within the hour he circled back around the block, and Steve watched him as he got out of his go-kart all shifty like, ran up to the Jeep, looked left, looked right, nervously slapped a ticket on the windshield that he had filled out in advance.  Then he ran back to his go-kart, got inside grizzly-bear-in-a-trashcan style, and sped off.  I am of course, using the phrase “sped off” relatively.  In a vehicle with a top speed of 26 mph and horsepower measured in a fraction, there’s only so much speeding one can do.  The ticket will be contested.  Oh yeah, as the guy drove away, Steve yelled out the window, “I slept with your wife.”  The parking attendant yelled back, “My wife’s in a coma.”  OK, that didn’t happen, but careful and discerning readers understand why it’s an appropriate end to the asterisk.

posted: 10 April 25
under: posted