I had a little mini panic attack yesterday because it occurred to me that my car registration expires in either March or April, but I couldn’t remember which one. If March, then I’ve been driving around on borrowed time. A frickin’ parking ticket in this city starts at $60. I can’t imagine what an expired registration ticket costs. So as soon as I got home I raced to my desk, dug through the “Important, Don’t Lose this Shit” pile and pulled out my shiny new registration sticker. I breathed a sigh of relief – April. I also silently called myself a dumbass because it occurred to me that I could have simply looked at the back plate of my car instead of stressing until I got home. Live and learn . . . and stop calling yourself a dumbass, dumbass. Damnit!
Now I know what you’re thinking. If I already had the sticker, why hadn’t I put it on my car already? Well that’s simple. I paid for my registration back in February, when I got my tax refund, but it doesn’t expire until April. Therefore, by putting the new sticker on in February I would be cheating myself out of two months that I paid for on my old sticker. What kind of sense does that make?!? Truth be told it raised my hackles a bit when I put the new sticker on there today with 20 days left on the old sticker. But since the rest of my month is really busy I was afraid that I’d forget and I figured that losing 20 days on my old sticker was cheaper than a ticket in May for expired registration.
Yes, I am well aware that this line of reasoning is absolutely asinine. If I truly followed this thinking to the letter I wouldn’t pay for my new registration until the end of April. However, I am waaaaaay too type A for that. In fact I’m pretty sure I’d be in a permanent flop sweat waiting for the new sticker to get in at the end of the month if I tried. So I pay for it in February which makes my head happy, and I put it on the car in April to stick it to the man! Okay that’s totally not sticking it to the man in any sense whatsoever, but it’s as close as I’m willing to get in this particular instance as I’m really not overly fond of parting with my money unnecessarily.
Unless of course it involves getting out of paying for parking. I can’t stand paying for parking. I will show up places 30 minutes early so that I have time to drive through every nearby neighborhood on the off chance that I can find free parking. I have boycotted places simply because there is no free parking anywhere nearby. I blame this on growing up in a tiny, backwater mountain town where a parking lot with painted spaces was considered fancy, and the only reason you had to pay for parking was if you ran over somebody’s beer and had to go buy them a new one. Therefore, I would rather spend $5 at CVS on random junk/food to get my parking validated instead of paying $3 for parking.
Again, I am well aware that this line of reasoning is absolutely asinine and true, that is more expensive, but it’s the principal of the thing! I would rather pay more for something tangible, than pay less for the privilege of having my car take up space for twenty minutes. Think about it. Paying for parking is essentially paying for the privilege of your car taking up space. That is asinine! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go drive around for ten minutes trying to find another two-hour free parking spot.