I just saw a notice that someone put up asking if they had to pay a parking
ticket when their TR was ticketed as a Fiat. Well, Amanda, my TR6, was
ticketed as a Fiat in Cambridge MA and wonder of wonders, they got the plate
number...well, not wrong, but one of the digits on the carbon was waterblurred.
So I took it in and with a perfectly straight face announced that I was not the
owner of a 'green Fiat with plate number <i made up the blurred digit>' but
the proud owner of a laurel Triumph TR6 with plate number etc. They gave me
all kinds of 'oh go away' John Cleese-ish responses until I suggested that we
kick the problem upstairs and politely asked if there was any equivalent in
the parking ticket business to 'reasonable doubt.' THen I mentioned that as
a student I could easily afford to stand around and bother them about it, and
finally in exasperation one of them said 'Okay, we'll take care of it, but
don't ever even think about owning a Fiat in this town or we'll find you.'
In a humerous, if exasperated way. So don't give up! Force those brownies
(oops, NYC upbringing coming through) meter people to learn to read marques!
-JBZimmerman!
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