Is This a Real Ticket?
The day was Sunday.
I make note of the day with significance at the start of our story because I think there should be a certain respect for this day of the week. It is, after all, the modern-day Sabbath, and on this weekly ritual I believe grace should abound. Sadly, The Greene disagrees ... Sort of.
Following a lovely service at Apex Community Church in Dayton, a group of somewhere between fifteen and twenty of us (enough that I didn’t think to count) went decided to go to BD’s Mongolian Barbeque to both celebrate and mourn our last Sunday service together for the semester. That’s right! In just five short days, on Friday, I will be taking my last Final Exam, finalizing the end of my Sophomore year at Cedarville University, and driving back to Iowa for the Summer! But I digress. BD’s.
A fantastic restaurant which I highly recommend. It’s one of those Mongolian-style restaurants where you put all the meat, noodles, and vegetables you want into a heaping bowl, pick three or four sauces and spices to top it off with, and hand it to a guy in a sweet hat to watch him cook it up for you on a massive grill with twenty other people’s meals. Not only is a fun experience, it’s a delicious adventure.
The BD’s we went to was around the Greene Mall, so we parallel parked out front, fed the meter, and went in. I gave Kylee at least six quarters, fifteen minutes each, so we had a good hour and a half on the meter. After having loads of fun joking with our waitress and the host of the hour, we finished our food, paid our bill, and walked back out to the car. There, on the windshield, tucked under the wiper blade, we found this:
Of course, my first reaction after seeing something
under the wiper was annoyance that I had gotten a
ticket while driving Kylee’s car. The second, after I
looked at the ticket, was how much it didn’t look
like a normal ticket.
The car ride back to Cedarville consisted of the five
of us going back and forth as to whether we thought
it was a real ticket or not. Our first conclusion was
that it couldn’t be a real ticket, it was just some
sponsorship type of a thing for this Hannah’s
Treasure Chest. But what if it was a real ticket? Not
paying it could result in a larger fine on Kylee’s
car.
After much debating, another one of us determined
it must be a real ticket because of the IRS
stamp at the bottom. This argument made sense until I
realized that every company, charitable organization,
and otherwise is registered with the IRS, so this
really didn’t mean anything. Again, we were back to
it not being a real ticket.
But there were those words in the first paragraph
“... when you pay this $5.00 ticket ...” which would
heavily imply it was a real ticket. Upon arriving
back at school, Garrett got online and did some
checking into tickets at The Greene. He called me
with the conclusion that it was a real ticket because a portion of
the proceeds from The Greene tickets went to a
charitable organization, which is what this ticket
claimed.
Then I thought of something that I don’t know why I
didn’t think of sooner: this ticket had absolutely no
information on it. It looked like a flyer than they
could easily print hundreds of in a few moments. It
was a standardized piece of card stock. It didn’t
have Kylee’s license number, her name, the time the
ticket was issued; it had nothing
relating to the
incident! If I put $5 into the enveloped and sent it
in, they would have no way of identifying that that
$5 was remittance for the “crime” attached to Kylee’s
license plate. There was no way they could keep us
accountable for paying the ticket or not, so it
couldn’t be a real ticket! After explaining this to
Garrett, he called the mall.
It turns out for all tickets issued at The Greene,
payment is optional. After thinking this over, I’ve
realized how big and silly of a scam this is. They’re
essentially trying to trick you into charitable
giving, which is the antonym of what charitable
giving should be. If I want to Hannah’s Treasure
Chest, I
will do it on my own time. Please don’t try to get money
from me by making me think I’ve committed some sort
of a felony. Please take specific note of this
wording: “a portion of the proceeds ...” Really?
You’re going to give a portion
of $5 to a charity?
On a final note, if you ever receive a ticket and
it’s only $5, be suspicious. I’ve never
gotten a ticket that was that cheap, and that should
have been one of the first signs that it wasn’t a
real ticket. The way The Greene dishonestly tries to
manipulate you into giving to their charity is
laughable and a disgrace for the mall. They’re making
a mockery of charities and the heart and intent that
should be behind the giving. If you want to give me a
ticket for illegally parking, do it. I don’t care
what you do with that money then. But don’t give me a
fake ticket impersonating a real ticket just to get
me to give to your charity. That really doesn’t make
me inclined to ever give to your sneaky charity.
Sorry. I’m not paying that ticket.