Let's See if This Gets Any Reaction

It is a closely-held belief of mine that companies embrace e-mail largely as a means of denying actual service. I have detailed before the chicanery and fraud of the Rio company, manufacturer of shoddy electronic goods.

Basically e-mail, to many organs, is a means of holding irate customers at arms' length until they give up and stop swinging.

Arriving in Vancouver for the first time I received a ticket from Imaprick ... sorry, I mean "Impark," because I had no payment slip on display ... on my motorcycle. I was not occupying an actual space, mind you, but had squeezed my bike behind a pillar in a little corner of the lot.

In other cities, it went without saying that putting a ticket on display on your bike was an invitation to theft of a parking ticket. But Impark was, as a corpate entity, uncommonly stupid and mean.

I won that one. There's been at least one other, for something similar. And I won that one too. But now they've decided to go for three.

A few weeks ago, Mme Metro had an appointment at a local dental establishment. The parking facilities have been taken over by Impark, but as this lot is at an educational institution, naturally there is no free parking within several kilometres. The car was left with two hours' worth of parking on it. Mme thought it might need more. But as the appointment for which she was arriving was supposed to last just an hour, and the coins were sufficient for just two, that was the amount purchased.

The appointment ran long. Mme paid for another 40 minutes or so, which would last until 2:10 PM. But she had to wait for one of the people she was to meet with, and the circumstances were such that she could not physically have left the building at that time, unless she wanted to attract attention by dragging her dentist along by the arm like a retreiver with a duck in its mouth.

There was a parking ticket on the car when she emerged at 2:16. Six dammned minutes after the ticket expired. The ticket was for almost $40, with the fine doubling at seven days.

It would only be justice if vandals raided the Impark executive lot every two days from now until judgement day and smeared the seats of the Lexii, Beemers, et. al. therein with a special paste guaranteed to cause ulceration of the buttocks.

Naturally I have to fight the ticket. Mme was unable to stir from the chair, and it was six friggin' minutes, for the love of the FSM!

I have tried to contact Impark, with the predictable result, i.e. none. So today I sent them this (I paraphrase slightly):

Dear Sturmparkentrupfers:

I have now conveyed several communicatta regarding my wife's violation ticket, without reply. I have made an especial effort to communicate at a level you would understand, including sending you a chewable cardboard book printed using words of only one syllable and bright friendly pictures. I even sent a mime to voice my complaint (if you will excuse the term) in interpretive dance. I would quite like to know what you did with the mime, by the way. I had heretofore regarded the rumours of an aligator pit beneath Der ImparkenNestderSchlanger to be without, a-hem, foundation.

Since it has now been over two weeks since the ticket was issued, the fine has doubled, according to the information on the ticket. Unfortunately I have decided that it is unlikely to be worth my time to send twice as many original messages, so I have decided to simply divide each subsequent message into two halves, one will contain the vowels and the other the consosnants. After all, it seems only fair that you should do some of the work your refreshingly candid attitude to customer service makes so necessary.

But perhaps I am underestimating your qualities of mercy? Perhaps you have searched your souls and found there some remnant of the Citizen Kane in all of us who longs only for his childhood sled, "Rosebud". And perhaps in that Grinch-atop-Mt.-Crumpet glow you have picked up your pluméd quill, and setting ink and wax to parchment dismissed the fine?

If so, then may the blessings of the FSM rain down upon you, I shall trouble your dark, bloodshot, and beady little eyes no more with my texts. In fact, to relieve your carpal ligaments off the strain of typing any reply at all to my messages I shall assume that this is what you have in fact done, pending notice to the contrary.

Sincerely yours,

Metro

Naturally I am expecting notice to the contrary. Why does there have to be so much moo before one gets to the milk?