Pricier than expected

Back in September, I parked on a street near Concordia before one of my classes. A month or so later, a letter from the City of Montreal informed me that I'd parked next to a construction zone and had received a taicket, and that it was time to pay the $42 or go to court over it.

I hadn't found a ticket on my car, and I didn't recall any signage indicating a construction zone, although I vaguely remembered some of that flexible, soft-plastic, orange fencing set up on a nearby lawn. Maybe that was it. Regardless, I had no evidence with which to fight this ticket, so I had to pay. I couldn't fight the man over this and expect to win, unlike last time.

I asked Elvi to pay it online for me, which she did promptly.

Last week, we received another letter from the city, telling us that we lost our court case and now had to pay $95. Say what?

Our credit card shows our payment, but Elvi never received a confirmation e-mail. She called the city agents and they said that without the case number of the e-mail we did not get, they have no way of connecting our payment to our ticket, despite the fact that we got no other tickets last fall (as far as I know).

So we're screwed. We paid the $42 ticket in October and while the city has the cash, the authorities say there's no evidence for why they have the money. Now, we have to send them another $95.

I'm going to call VISA tomorrow and try to straighten this out. It's freaking theft.

Bonus ticket:

Friday night, the Montreal Juniors held a promotion for NDG hockey in which kids wearing their hockey sweaters got in free. My ticket cost $15. That's not a bad deal, and when you factor in the loss of Child Three's gloves (well, one of them) and the parking ticket I got for parking in a long, long line of other cars that also got tickets (there was a single sign at the end of the block), it's still less expensive than a Habs game.