Game On, Parking Ninja.

I think the Los Angeles Parking Enforcement officer who patrols my street is a ninja.
I'll cruise my street, scanning for empty spots, pull into the No Parking zone for a minute to wait for a spot to open up, blink and BAM! PARKING TICKET.

Where did the ticket come from? Where is the officer who wrote me this ticket? I don't see any Parking Enforcement vehicles, so how did this happen? Where are you, Parking Enforcement Officer? I'll tell you where. In the goddamn bushes in ninja camouflage.

My craptacular avenue is perpendicular to a day care/school thing and when I get off work, I'm often forced to contend for spots in front of my apartment in manic who-can-parallel-park-the-fastest death battles for open spaces with parents coming to collect their offspring. And I always lose those battles because I am a WOMAN and cannot parallel park to save my life. I'm sorry if you ladies are offended by my automotive sexism, but let me just stop and say that there are a lot of things that I'm good at and quite a few things that I can do better than most boys, (like getting a period [ha, sorry, kidding...]) but when it comes to getting in my car and driving my happy ass to point B, I'm already as good as lost before I even pull out of the driveway. I talk to other cars as though they can hear me, (i.e. "LET ME MERGE, YOU ASS-PIRATE!") I get lost almost every time I get in the car, I have no concept of directionality ('north' is up, right?) and you can just forget about parking. Sometimes I literally put my car in park and make EM's boyfriend do it for me.

What?! Don't judge me - at least I'm aware of my failings. Also, I have excellent boobs and I can't be good at everything, you know?

So Parking Ninja hides in wait for me. On days when I'm sick from work and can't move my car to the other side of the street for street cleaning between 12 and 2 pm, I'll groggily shuffle downstairs and regardless of whatever time I *thought* it was when I remembered to move my car, it will always be 12:02 and I will always have a ticket written at 12:01. Parking Ninja is nowhere to be seen, because he is a ninja and he is laughing his evil laugh from behind the bushes or in the storm drain or probably even from *inside* my car that he broke into with his Ninja Magic.

I think I'm being hunted and unfairly targeted by Parking Ninja. Fine. Two can play at this game. I will wear my own camouflage and lie in wait... patiently... patiently... patiently waiting for you to enter the 6-inch force field-activated Shitstorm of Velociraptors car alarm that I bought with all the money I saved by not paying the city of Los Angeles your alleged "parking citations."