An Open Letter to the City of San Francisco

Dear San Francisco,

In the past week, I have received two parking tickets totaling one hundred dollars. This is unacceptable. Unacceptable, I say! To demonstrate and fully emote my outrage, I will employ exclamation marks and question marks liberally as I dictate my highly logical reasons why your excessive dispensing of tickets is very unfair!!!

For one, I am a vital cog to the economy of San Francisco. As an individual who works full-time in your fine city, I eat at least one meal there a day. The five to ten dollars that I spend dining daily at your local restaurants helps grease the wheels of your businesses and establishments. Where would “Moffitt Cafeteria”, or “Milano’s Pizza” be without me?? They’d be in financial ruin, that’s where they’d be!! Who will eat those Parnassus Burgers and sausage pizzas now?? You are essentially lining your pockets with money that would have otherwise gone to the coffers of your local restaurant owners. I hope that you can live with yourselves!

Another thing is that your reckless ticketing damages the culture of your fine city which is highly ironic given that one of the very things that San Francisco prides itself on is its culture! Well guess what? My fellow employees include people from Iran, Korea, Taiwan, and other places. In other words, my lab is a veritable RAINBOW of culture. Or it was supposed to be, anyway. Instead, the gifts you have been leaving wedged under our car hoods have made is so that the only culture in our lab is one of despair and incalculable loss. Yes… despair! In fact, just the other day I had to stop working on the computer because my vision had become so blurred by my bitter tears. You might as well withdraw my $100 in one dollar bills and “make it rain” in your offices since I doubt there is anything else you can do to further deepen my emotional trauma!!

Finally, consider the intangibles that are indirectly contributed as a result of my presence in your city. Surely my effervescent, bubbly personality is a source of constant joy for your residents. Surely, surely they are inspired by the bravado that I display when I U-turn in the middle of the street to snatch up a vacant parking spot, my zest for life never being put on display more clearly at any other moment! I ask you, how can your city’s residents be anything but delighted and amused when they see me coming out everyday at the exact same time to move my car to the other side of the street to avoid being ticketed? Or when they see me pull up behind their cars and start vigorously signaling for their parking spots when I see them leaving their homes? They can’t. Ultimately, my clever and daring parking strategies simultaneously entertain and stir the human spirit! Should such a valuable and productive contributor to your city be fined so heavily for so small a grievance?? I should hope not!

In conclusion, please stop giving me parking tickets.

Sincerely,

Dennis