JUSTICE, DELAYED BUT NOT DENIED

Sometimes the wheels of Justice grind slowly, but grind they do... and most of us hope never to get caught up in them. Herewith, a story...

It was June of 2013, and we were in Philadelphia to attend Elder Daughter’s graduation from clown school the Pig Iron School of Advanced Performance Training. We had an opportunity to see an extraordinary group of actors demonstrate their craft in various performance pieces, and a graduation ceremony that managed to be both touching and amusing, a ceremony that was entirely fitting for this, Pig Iron’s very first APT class.

At the time, the Missus was suffering from a torn ligament and associated tendinopathy, a Footly Condition that made it extremely difficult and painful to walk. Consequently, she applied for - and received - a temporary handicapped placard from Cobb County, Georgia that enabled her to use designated handicapped parking places.



But apparently, some of the beat patrollers in Philly never got the memo, because on our final morning there, after having parked in a streetside handicapped parking place, we returned to our car to find a parking ticket on the windshield. The officer who issued the ticket noted that our placard (which was mounted correctly on the rear-view mirror) had been issued in Georgia but that the car we were in - the Mistress of Sarcasm’s ride - was registered in Connecticut. This, at least in his mind, was evidence that we had not only parked illegally in a handicapped space, but that we had done so fraudulently. Fraudulently, by Gawd!

The ticket was for a jaw-dropping $1001. Yes, you read that correctly: It was a thousand-dollar parking ticket.

Great Googly Moogly! I had thought, until then, that the only way to get a thousand-dollar parking ticket was to park at a kindergarten... on top of all the children.

Needless to say, with that much cabbage on the line, we were not about to “pay the two dollars.” Instead, we filed an appeal online with the City of Philadelphia. After all, isn’t portability the whole point of having a portable handicapped parking placard?

After waiting about seven weeks, we received a polite letter informing us that the charge had been dismissed. Justice had been served.

And the timing was exquisite.

The morning of the letter’s arrival, the day’s Torah reading had included the immortal verse from the Book of Deuteronomy, “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof: Justice, justice shalt thou pursue.”

Yesterday, the cycle of our annual Torah readings brought that selfsame verse around once more, reminding me of this story of Justice, Delayed but not Denied. And so, Esteemed Reader, I share it with you.