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Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2002 - 10:46 p.m.

Das boot

At the end of the month, you need to watch out for cops trying to fill their quotas.

I walked out of Casey's apartment building Tuesday morning into a bright, warm Jersey City 60-degree day and glanced across the street at a Land Rover or some such SUV with an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper on the windshield. I could read the inch-and-a-half-high red block letters from the doorway: "WARNING!" And the battered orange clamp on the front left wheel was unmistakenly a "boot."

I descended the steps and walked a few feet to my car, parked along the curb in the last spot that left enough room to the fire hydrant, and opened the passenger-side door to put my backpack in.

And then I saw it. Secured there by my own windshield wiper, the letters backward and muted through the card, but clear nonetheless: "WARNING!"

I let out an expletive and darted around to see my precious Grand Am booted into place on Dudley Street, Jersey City, 11:30 a.m. "Do not attempt to move this vehicle," the card screamed at me. "It has been seized by the Jersey City Parking Authority." It went on to say that I must show up in person at the Jersey City Parking Authority and pay 50 bucks to get them to come and remove the boot. Beneath the warning card was the parking ticket: the cop had been by at 8:46 a.m. and returned at 11:10 -- I'd exceeded the two-hour limit for curbside parking on a weekday.

Problem for me, though, was I'd done it a few times before. Sometimes I'll park in the basement to Casey's building, but entrance AND exit from there requires the magnetic keyring that Casey and her roommates have. So even when I'd park in the garage, I'd be up at 7:30 a.m. moving my car to the street and returning to Casey's bed for a few more hours' sleep in the empty apartment before getting up myself. So as I fumed over my booted vehicle, I realized that with just three days left in the month, the cops and parking authorities were likely catching up on their January seizures.

Once I stopped muttering bad things about uniformed city personnel, I pulled out my Jersey City map to look up 394 Central Ave., which was basically due west of Hoboken - too far to walk. So I called information, got the number of a cap company, and called a cab.

The cab drove up within the 10 minutes promised - the first thing to go right - and almost immediately after I gave the address, the driver said, "Got booted, huh?" But he turned out to be pretty nice, and was familiar with driving bootees to Central Ave.; he said it would take about 10 minutes and he'd wait for me.

After a tour of Jersey City, I went up to the parking authority and put 50 bucks on my MasterCard and was told the boot would be off within an hour. We drove back to Dudley St. and as we neared my car, someone got out of a parking authority pickup and began freeing my Grand Am. The cab fare came to $17.10, so I gave him a 20, bringing my total so far to $70. It's going to cost me another $29.34 - the $29 parking fee and 34 cents to mail the check and ticket - to bring the grand total to $99.34.

So I'm going to give Casey 50 bucks to say she lost her magnetic keychain thingy to get me one so I can park in the garage.

But it's not over. I immediately began feeling better as I got in the car and opened the sunroof and windows and enjoyed the leisurely drive through Jersey City and Hoboken on the way back to my apartment. I had good music on the radio, and did not mind the traffic and bustle along Washington Ave. in Hoboken. Casey called me back (I'd called her after getting a hold of the taxi company, but she was busy) and I rehashed the story for her. I stopped at Pathmark for some fixins for dinner and found a parking space in the tiny lot that's closer to my apartment building, across the side street rather than across four-lane River Road.

This morning, after Casey left for work at 10:30, I enjoyed my leisurely morning on another warm, but overcast day. After some TV and breakfast, but before lunch, I decided that I shouldn't tempt the parking gnomes again, so I put on my sneakers and went down to move my car from the lot, which has a two-hour limit. Besides, it's not smart to blatantly disobey the posted parking limits when the police station is right across the street.

From across the street, I saw a good sign: No boot. And, as I neared, didn't look like there was a ticket. But I did see one thing out of the ordinary: A white chalk mark on the left rear tire, and for chalk numbers on the pavement that read 10:10, as in a.m. I looked at my watch: 12:20 p.m.

I'd made it, and I'd gotten an extra 10 minutes (according to the cops), and as I knew, since I'd been there since overnight, I'd gotten a good 4:20 out of it (limits are from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.). As I backed out of the space, I saw another car with a chalk mark, and wished its unknown owner good luck at not suffering the same fate I did.

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