Coffee shop memories...

I stopped by a coffee shop today while I was downtown and suddenly it dawned on me that I'd been to this particular coffee shop before.

It was about three years ago. There I was, minding my own business as I stopped by this coffee shop one morning for a cup of coffee. The store sits on a three-lane, one-way street, one lane of which is taken up with parked cars. However, right in front of the store, there's a black Mustang parked so as to block one of the remaining two lanes. Now I've legally parked about a block back because I don't approve of illegal parking like that, even by me in a marked unit. Sure I won't get a ticket, but it just looks bad.

I go in and get my coffee, and when I come out, it's still there. So I ask the people sitting at the patio tables if any of them own the Mustang. One young fella in his mid-20's sitting there with three friends says that it's his. I tell him he needs to move it, and he looks at me and says "You're not the city police, are you?"
I told him that I wasn't, and he said "Well when a city police officer asks me to move it, I'll think about it." Little punk said it in front of maybe two dozen people.

I just said "OK, if that's how you want to play it..." and I walked away sipping my coffee. and I prayed that he wouldn't move the car in the time it took me to walk back to my cruiser. Apparently he was unaware of the fact that my agency and that city have concurrent jurisdiction. I have as much authority as any city officer but rather than argue with him...

It took me maybe a minute to drive back to the store and pulled my cruiser up behind his Mustang, which he'd obligingly left right there. And right in front of those two dozen people, I got out my city ticket book and started writing the ticket. Now he wants to be reasonable.

"OK, Ok...I'll move it right now," he says as he runs over and jumps over the little patio fence.
"Yeah, you will. Just as soon as I finish writing. Go back over there and sit down."
He started to plead and apologize and he told me that he didn't know I could really write tickets. I told him again to go sit down. A minute ago he thought it was funny to front me off with all these people around. Now suddenly it wasn't so funny.

I wrote him for No Standing Anytime--$50.00. Then I noticed how far he was parked from the curb. I went over and put my 13-inch boot between his tire and the curb. I looked at him and told him that he was more than a foot off the curb too. That was another ticket for another $35.00.

I called him back over and handed him his two tickets and told him again to move his car. This time, he said "Yes sir..." and moved it without any trouble.

And that's how an Attitude Adjustment works.

Three years later as I bought another coffee at that same shop, I still thought it was funny.