Just enough to get by!

One Friday night, not too long ago, I grabbed a bite to eat and went to a movie. My boyfriend had previous plans, so I had gone by myself. After the movie, I went home, played on the computer a little, did a few things around the house, took a shower and went to bed. My boyfriend came over around 12:30 am, wanting to go do something. So, I got up, got myself ready and we went to a popular nightclub, arriving around 1:30 or so. We stayed for a couple of hours, having a few drinks and enjoying the music. Now here is where the story gets a little interesting. Take in mind there is not a lot of good parking, as it is in the city and the hub of interesting places for this area. We are walking to his truck, laughing and joking, and as we approach his truck, conversation dies out when we see a sticker on the driver side window. I noticed there are stickers on all of the vehicles in this parking lot. Then a guy starts hollering over to us… “Hey there is a boot on your truck”! When we read the sticker on the driver window it states, “Please do not attempt to drive away, as a boot has been placed on your vehicle and will cause severe damage to your vehicle”. The guy that previously hollered to us is making his way over to us. He said, “You have parked in this parking lot without paying. It will be $30. $5 for the parking and $25 to get your boot off. We start towing at 4 am, and then it will be $120.” WHAT? My first question is “what time is it now?” 3:30. My boyfriend immediately starting asking questions about the parking fees. “There was nobody here taking parking fees, where do you pay, how much is it, we have parked here before and there has never been fees before, if I had seen the sign, I would have paid the five dollars…..” Then the guy points over to a box with numbered slots over in the corner area of the parking lot (that is not even lit) that has a small sign over it to pay here, $5, and one sentence of instruction. Then he says, “Each space is numbered to coincide with the numbered slot. When we come here, we open the box and see which spaces have paid and ticket the ones not paid.” Oh my gosh, at the exact same time, my boyfriend and I said “what a racket”. Then we noticed a couple of other people on the other end of the parking lot, getting a little ticked off. The police were there. So I started asking the policeman questions about the police involvement and where the money goes, etc. The police said, “we are just here to make sure the parking guys don’t have any problems”. I said, “Huh, ya think, and what would give you that idea?” As my boyfriend started defending and arguing, saying “how could anyone see that sign, and if this weren’t such a racket, then why would there be so many people getting tickets, and why would the police need to even come…….”, I noticed person after person, coming up the hill into the parking lot to find the sticker and the boot, same as us. Let me tell you, there were a lot of angry people there. Well, with much reluctance, at 3:50 am, my boyfriend wrote a check to get the boot off. He doesn’t normally carry a lot of cash with him, so thankfully they accepted checks. At that point, he chose to pay the lesser of two evils, even though he didn’t want to pay either. Then they wanted 2 phone numbers on the check and I thought my boyfriend was going to lose it. Well, we got the boot off, and went on our “un-merry” way. Those people must be making a “killing” off people. They had a sign up, so legally there was nothing we could do, but it was just enough for them to get by! And get this; it was a church parking lot!