20251213 The RM50 Irony

 Usually, when we go out together, most of us would look for some shady parking spots which even the Authorities would not bother. In fact, most of us Malaysians have this bad parking habit and now, decades later, it has gotten even worse. All that changed for me when in the late 80's, an Engineer shared a mind-blowing concept with me. "Don't think of the Parking fee as a burden but more as a shield" or something like that. What he meant was, the RM1.00 is an Insurance or guarantee that you would not be fined. And so, once you accepted that paradigm shift, paying for parking is not that bad. Since we're on a 1 hour lunch break, finding parking fast is very important and so, paying for a proper parking spot is standard. Well, OK, unless the fee is RM6.00 and above which is not my kind of tea.

 And so, I've been drilling this to my colleagues and anyone who would listen to an old Uncle like me.

 Coming back to the irony of the day, since I offered to drive my colleagues to Lunch (we kinda voluntarily rotate our cars), I made sure to share the parking concept with them. I mean, there is nothing else to do while sitting inside a car where it is blowing hot A/C gasses at you, and on a busy street too. Before I could start, I noticed a vacant parking slot across us which, surprisingly, no one has taken it for the past 6 seconds. And so, after swooping in and parking my car, we went on our merry way while I mentally and humbly congratulated on my great luck. Lunch was just an ordinary affair where I got to have my favourite Jawa Mee and we bumped into an ex-colleague who had finally escaped the grind.

The Irony?

 Well, that was me, getting fined, for not paying for the parking while telling others to pay for their parking. I guess the excitement of getting that parking made me forget. These are the spots where people just parked and did not bother about paying. I guess the change of guards has brought on new changes.
 

 

 

 

Yeah, the fine would cost me about a minimum of 4 days of Lunch which means, I better start making my own Lunch. Maybe its a sign for me to do that as most of the Lunches really made me gain weight...