My wife and I own a house near the PNE in Vancouver. Some of you may understand why I have an issue with random people parking in front of our house. On this occasion, I saw this car behind the butterfly bush in front. It had been there for over a day (or so it occurred in my mind).
I went out, looked at the car, noticed it was from out of province, and in fact was from Washington state. I decided to call parking enforcement to give them a ticket, because there was ample undesignated parking across the street, and I had not seen this car here before plus there was no indication they were known to anyone on the street.
Well, once the parking ticket person arrived and began doing her duties writing up the vehicle, to my horror my next door neighbor and the person to which the vehicle belonged rushed out in a mad panic to try to stop the process. By this time it was too late: the ticket was printed and the parking enforcer, who did not appear to have a friendly demeanor, was very matter-of-factedly telling them it's a done deal.
About 10 minutes after the parking enforcer left, I sheepishly went over to my neighbour with a box of candy (I had left over from last Christmas that I had not gifted yet) to make amends for my calling parking enforcement. Her friend had been visiting over night, and her car had only been there since 2 pm the day before (whereas I thought it was there all day yesterday and today!).
We cleared things up, she declined the candy and handed me the ticket to take care of plus a jar of jam, I guess to mitigate the sting of paying a $60 ticket. We then agreed that we would ask our guests that park in front of each others' houses to put signs on the dash.
At the end of it, I still have a good relationship with my neighbor, the egg on my face washed off nicely over the ensuing two days, and even though I'm $60 out, the cost is worth it to me to keep up good relations with the person next door.
