Sometimes asking just isn’t enough and when it isn’t, don’t be afraid to confront “The Man” to save that extra buck.

For instance, last weekend my wife, Marie, had a misfortune of fracturing her toe and sadly has been hobbling around since then. Being the great husband that I am (or maybe it’s just that we are still newlyweds, ha) and having inherited a car from my marriage, I decided that I should drive her to work for a few days. Her commute is normally no big deal, but it’s not like I had anything urgent to do.

In any case, everything went smoothly the first couple of days, but on Wednesday my selfless efforts hit a snag when I was slapped with a $115 ticket!

My wife had basically just stepped out of the car, I waved and then looked to my right to pull out of the spot (which I admit was marked “Commercial Parking Only”). There was a van coming toward me, so I patiently waited for it to pass when a Traffic Cop zipped around the van and blocked me from leaving the spot.

I couldn’t have been there more than five minutes, three of which my wife spent trying to get out of the car. When the officer approached me, I simply and politely tried to explain that I was dropping off my wife, who has a broken toe. The officer couldn’t care less, in fact her response was “She’s not in the car now, I’m giving you a summons.” Ironically, Marie noticed the officer and turned around, with her surgical shoe on and cane in hand, to ask if there was a problem, but the officer refused to acknowledge her presence.

I remained calm, though I wanted to explode, and polite, though I wanted to smack the officer for being such a jerk. When I asked the officer what she suggested I do in my case, she told me to be quicker. I thought that was funny, since the only thing I could have done to be quicker was push my wife out of the car as I slowly rolled by the building. Can you believe that? “Be quicker” was all she could say, as she ignored my wife, standing directly behind her, and wrote me up.

I plan on fighting this, and if there is any justice beating the ticket. I only hope that I get the chance to tell a judge just how unreasonable the offer was acting and point out that by doing so, the only thing she accomplished was wasting everyone’s time and moreover taxpayer money!

I HOPE that the moral of this story will be that sometimes you have to fight for that extra buck of savings or wrongful charges, but I haven’t won yet, so I’ll keep you posted. I could end up being that mean people with a little bit of power are jerks.

-By Jose Gonzalez, Founding Member