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Dreadful Nonsense

"I've read your blog. it's really funny. you should write a column." - Jon Ronson

We turned in towards the car park, and noticed that the car in front had stopped. A guy with a dragon on his t-shirt was leaning towards the driver of the car in front, and grasped in his hands was an official looking clip board. My mother let out a sigh, and said that she’d never been charged to park here before, wasn’t it Council run, isn’t that why we pay our taxes etc. We all turned to look at each other. We all had the thought as one. I dared to speak it out loud.

“I dare you. Just drive past him.”

Littlesisterlouise pointed out that she’d tried that before, and the man had hit the bonnet of the car (with his hand, not his entire body) and she’d had to stop and pay in the end. I pointed out that Mum, being an adult grown up and also having an expression that says ‘don’t mess with me, dude, or we’re all going to get hurt here’, would probably get away with just driving past.

The car in front pulled away from the dragon-clad man, and he moved towards our car.

We moved forward.

He leaned in.

Mum turned and looked to her left.

We kept moving.

We all tried not to laugh hysterically, and watched through the mirrors to see what would happen next. Mr Dragon made a move towards the car, and then thought the better of it, and turned back around to stop the next car going through, leaning as he did with his official clip board.

We all murmured things about Rip Off Ireland and how, since this is a Council run carpark, he was probably just chancing his arm, and did anyone else see anyone in uniform, and how he didn’t have one of those day-glo jackets that car park attendants usually have, and by the end of about ten minutes of muttering, we were all congratulating each other on having saved ourselves being duped by an obvious conman who we should probably report to the police, and maybe at the end of it all we’d get a commendation from the Mayor thanks to our sense of good citizenship.

Driving back out of the carpark, the very sizeable, very clearly printed Council sign loomed large over the car. Parking €4, by order of Wicklow County Council.

That made us all laugh even more.

This entry was posted on 30 August 2005 at 1:24 pm. 0 comments

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