10:00am | [Editor’s note: This piece contains offensive language.] 

The Beatles’ “Lovely Rita” may be the only non-negative thing ever written about “meter maids” (whatever their gender). Talk about thankless jobs. 

Most of us drivers have, at one time or another, felt screwed with our pants on by parking-enforcement officers — not necessarily because we weren’t guilty of the infraction (by their very nature parking citations are less likely to be handed out to the innocent than moving violations), but because it feels so damn unfair to get a parking ticket just because the meter expired five minutes before you got back to your car or misread the sign that applies to your spot.  

The sentiment may be amplified in a city like Long Beach, where parking is often quite a challenge. But even here we see the need for at least some parking regulations. And regulations are meaningless without enforcement. Hence, the Parking Citations division of the Office of Financial Management, its officers driving around in little white jeeps with the steering wheel on the right. 

Being a parking-enforcement officer has to be a bit like being a dentist: we’re not happy when you’re doing your work on us. But we know a root canal is for our own good. Parking tickets may be pro bono publico, but none of us is grateful to the officer placing one on our windshield. 

This lack of gratitude is fine; but what I saw on Broadway not so long ago definitely is not. An officer came upon a restored “classic” car left parked in a loading zone beyond the well-posted 24-minute limit and began to cite it accordingly. Shortly a man came weaving through traffic in an attempt to forestall the citation, making the inscrutable argument that he worked across the street and always parked there without incident. Not surprisingly, the officer was unmoved. 

The man’s tone became increasingly belligerent. “Have a good day, cocksucker,” he finally spat before returning the way he had come. Once on the opposite sidewalk, he stared down the officer, then began to yell: “You’re a big man, huh? Asshole. Cock-SUCKER!” 

The First Amendment exists not so much to protect pleasant and generally acceptable speech (such speech doesn’t need much protection) but the unpopular sort, expressions of which the majority of people and/or the power centers of government do not approve. In so far as it doesn’t otherwise disturb the peace, you are well within your rights to use profanity, to curse at whomever you like — including not just parking-enforcement officers but even the police. 

Nonetheless, doing so doesn’t make you a hero, a champion of civil rights. Rather, in a case like this, where the person is simply doing his unpopular job — a job he could very possibly lose if he starts availing himself of the First Amendment to give as good as he’s getting — I think it makes you a vulgar coward.  

It’s not that I’m sensitive to profanity — words in and of themselves don’t trouble me in the least — it’s that I hate bullies, and loudmouths, and machismo. And I hate hypocrites, which our little man certainly was. Because you can lay your good money down that if this fellow really works across the street and one day his customers can’t get in the loading zone to make their pick-ups because some bloke has parked there all day, he’ll smile at a citation, and cheer for a tow truck rolling up. 

More often than not I feel a twang of empathy for the owner of any vehicle I see getting that dreaded rectangular notice of “you just lost $50, bub” placed under a wiper. On many occasions I have gone so far as to drop spare change into an expired meter.  

But I have sympathy for parking-enforcement demons, even though they torment us. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. They shouldn’t catch hell in the process.