sleepyI'm not sure exactly what's so entertaining about this sort of docudrama but it manages to reel me in each time. There's just something about following everyday people doing their jobs and seeing the freaks and nutcases that interact with them that tickles my fancy. The oddest part is that I loathe metermaids, tow trucks, and parking tickets on principle. I've always had a very lassez faire view of parking. I think that if I can find a space to put my car, I should be able to leave it there for as long as I want. I can't even begin to tell you how many parking tickets I defaulted on while living in Chicago. I probably payed around 3-400 dollars worth of fines while I was living there and collected at least a couple thousand worth that I never did diddily about. After a while, the backseat of my car was so full of parking tickets that it looked like I was collecting them. I would only get around to throwing them all out when it was no longer possible to see the floors and seats.
Not to mention I also managed to get my ass towed while in chicago twice. Both were some of the most unpleasant experiences I have ever had with governmental authority. The first time resulted me having to walk past cabrini green to try to recover my car. Of course, being completely ignorant at the time, I had no idea cabrini green was there nor that I was taking my life into my hands by prancing around there while carrying a backpack and practically advertising my avaliability as a victim. I hadn't gone more than a block before I encountered my first oblique death threat. The second time I got my car towed I had to spend the night at the tow yard because I couldn't get my car out of hock until morning.
So given all that, it's sort of strange that I would gravitate toward a show that obviously wants you to sympathize with metermaids and tow truck drivers. You just can't help it though. After a while, you just end up seeing them as normal people with a shitty job to do and it helps that the people they're forced to deal with are often complete and utter assholes. It's not long before you start cheering them on to write more tickets and tow more cars. The entire show is subversive brainwashing in action.
