I got Clamped. And I Didn't like it.

                        What I wish I did today...
I am so mad that I could spit flames.  This morning I rushed into town to deliver a book order to a local store that stocks TELESA. I parked my car where I always do. In the Parking Lot marked PRIVATE PARKING ONLY. Because its always empty. And it's the only parking available for miles. And because I'm only running inside the shop for five minutes. And I always park there, dammnit.
As I got out of my car, I noticed a man sitting in another car some distance away, giving me shifty eyed looks. My paranoia radar beeped. Car jacker. Mugger. Thief. Weirdo. I double checked my car was locked and ran into the store extra fast. Delivered the books. Ran out again.  What the hell?!
I had been clamped. And not in a Fifty Shades Christian Grey kinda way. In a big ole steel lock on my tires kinda way. A bright orange card told me off for parking illegally, gave me a number to call and be ready to pay $200 cash to get my car unclamped. Double dammnit. If I'd had a steel cutting blade on me I would have used it. Instead I  had to sprint up the road to withdraw cash. Then I called the number. Two seconds later, the shifty-eyed creep drove up and smiled at me. This time he was wearing a badge and carrying an official looking receipt book.  I wanted to kill him. So bad. Anger and evil outrage was at war with my deeply ingrained sense of Samoan respect and need for deference to authority and ticket issuers.
"I can't believe you did that. You sat there and watched me park here, waited for me to go inside and then you clamped my car! That's so…mean!""Ma'am I'm just doing my job.""But you could have been nice. You could have said, hey lady, don't park there. Or you could have been a little more obvious about your parking official uniform instead of hiding it and pretending to just be a shifty-eyed stalker. You're just so...MEAN!"He shrugged. "This is how I earn my money. I work on commission." He smiled and took his easiest two hundred dollars ever.
I ranted and raved in my car all the way home about the evils of mean jerks who work mean nasty jobs that require them to be mean jerks to nice, busy, minding-their-own-business people. People who just needed to park in a stupid empty spot for FIVE FREAKIN MINUTES. This is why my kids need to work hard at school. So they never have to cross over to the dark side of Satan and work as a wheel clamper, ripping people off. I came home. Ranted and raved at the Fab5. 
"What do we learn from this? 
Little Daughter looked bemused. "Umm, we learn that we should never park illegally in private parking spaces?"
That is SOOOOO not the answer I was looking for.
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