Right

I do a lot of traveling in strange towns. Blow into airports after midnight and have to navigate my way to cheap hotels usually with blurry vision and a sore lumbar. The google maps feature on my iPhone has saved my bacon more than once. Yes, please get me THERE from HERE, and please don't ask me where I am because I have no idea. The beautiful utility of GPS.

Last week Washington DC was a challenge for both me and Mr. Garmin. Road construction, local custom, quirks and volume of traffic will do that. I got my first ever speeding ticket while on assignment and a pair of parking tickets. The speeding was my fault, I missed a turn, had to re-route and as I tried to make up the lost time, hit the gas to pass a lane stuck in detour traffic on a downhill and hit 55 in a 40. The officer asked if I had seen the 40 MPH signs. Thinking it a test I quickly replied with deadpan sincerity, no, sir, my first trip to your beautiful city and, well, must have missed it. Sign here please.

The parking tickets we have already discussed, but I would like to add a rather humorous footnote. You may file this under, me laughing at me. And sometimes I crack me up. I can be silly and sometimes the harder I try to accept the role of a mature, responsible adult, the funnier it gets. A paradox to which I can only respond to by laughter.

The first parking ticket was in a hip area near the DC Hilton, or the Hinkely Hilton as it is often called for reasons that all Ronald Reagan fans will surrey recall. There was a stretch of back-in only parking in front of shops, cafes, bars, a CVS, two Starbucks and a KFC. Cool, I think as I back in, but make sure it is legal. So I look around, read all the signs, and walk away to get to the Expo. I come back in twenty minutes to find a $25 ticket. The parking meter was across the street and a half block South. OK, another lesson learned, move along.

Two days later as Kathy and I were negotiating parking to eat dinner we spotted a space on the street and paralleled in. I made a great show to use my debit card and bought the maximum time, two hours, for four dollars and we went in to eat. I was (at last) playing by the rules.

Two hours later after an exotic meal and delicious wine, we return to the car to drive home. Only to find the match to the earlier ticket securely attached to the drivers side wind shield wiper.

"I thought you bought two hours", says Kathy looking at her Timex.

"I did" I said looking at mine, the chronometer showing that we have 92.7 seconds remaining, as I pull the receipt from my pocket as further documentation and legal proof.

"You are supposed to put the receipt on the dash."

Deep breath.

"Right."

Laughter.

Poor me.

Edvard Munch knows how I sometimes feel. The view from our table at Zaytinya, scene of the crime, or the scream.