On receiving a parking ticket

Director of Technical Services
Town Hall, Gt Yarmouth

Dear Mr Director,
                        On Friday last, my wife and I visited your wonderful town to do some shopping. We parked our car in the multi storey along of the Market Gates. Only able to raise 20p in change, we bought an hour’s worth, promised to look for more change while shopping, come back and buy another ticket.
     First stop- Boots for wine kits (on Barclaycard) not that I drink myself; its for the mother-in-law when she visits. She says it soothes her jackboot rash.Next stop, Leaches, for a tin of Sadostop (B/c again) then on to the final stop- Sainsburys. Just as we’re starting on the second trolley, the wife tells me we’re nearly due back at the car (she’s the one with the watch) and we’ve still no change. We might pick some up at the checkout so we look for the shortest queue, but there isn’t one. So we pick the nearest, and that’s where we come up against the till roll syndrome.
     Now if ever you’ve come up against the novice changing the till roll in Sainsburys, I know you’ll tear up the parking ticket now, but in case you haven’t, I’ll learn you, but I must warn you that what follows is not for the faint-hearted, squeamish, sick of spleen, delicate natured, or those given to the vapours.
     It goes like this. You’ve committed yourself to the queue; there are three people in front of you, six behind, and a glance at the other  queues tells you to stay where you are, when the assistant opens the till and takes the old roll out. She picks up the new one and tries to put it in the hole where the old one came from and it won’t go. She thumps and bangs it for a while, and then picks up the old  one again. She notices its got a plastic carrier spool in the middle. Her eyes light up and she whips out the carrier spool and tries to ram it into the new roll, but it won’t go, because the spool centres are different sizes.
     Now you have to wait until she calms down, and realises that what you have to do is put the now empty carrier spool back where the old spool came from, put the new roll in the empty position above the carrier spool, and thread the paper from one to the other. Now if you have experienced this before, at this point you are tempted to offer advice. This is a mistake.
     ‘Why?’ I hear you cry. I will tell you- because this is the sort of thing you cannot talk about with your hands in your pockets. At some point you feel compelled to gesticulate with your fingers. Its alright- to gesticulate- they can’t touch you for it, but the girl doesn’t know that, and at this point her SAS training comes to the fore. She picks up that little plank marked ‘Next Customer’ and  thwocks you across the knuckles, and you lose all interest in the problem.
     This happened to a friend of mine, and he has never played the violin from that day. Yassah Heifitz he wasn’t, but he could do a passable Jimmy Wheeler- “Aye aye, that’s yer lot!’ or a Vic Oliver, but he couldn’t get the white jackets.
     SO I had the sense to keep my hands in my pockets and my mouth  shut, with the result that we arrived at the car 18 min. late. We knew it was close because we could still hear the Yellow Peril’s manic laugh at the other end of the level, and we could smell the acrid fumes if his composition soles.
     Now its not that I begrudge you a tenner, but having looked around your beautiful burgh, I think I need it  more than you do. I tell you what- I don’t mind a credit note for £10 against a painting- it might even run to a bit of discount, but I wouldn’t want that bandied about.
     What do you say?
 
                  He sent the standard form saying ‘Pay up’