I woke up yesterday morning to Jessica knocking on my door and asking for my keys so that she could go move my car. There hadn't been a place for me to park when I came home the previous night, so I parked in the side yard. I meant to move it before I went to bed, but I forgot. Result: I got a parking ticket. I imagine at this point you're all thinking "Well, you parked illegally, so yeah. You get a ticket. That's what happens." I would agree with you if it weren't for the fact that, though I was parked on the side of the street, I had all four tires on our property. It is apparently illegal to park in your own yard here, and you can and will get a ticket for it. This is the second time it's happened to me. That's right. The city apparently has the authority to tell us in what areas of our own property we are allowed to park our vehicles, and fine us if we fail to adhere to whatever restrictions they see fit to set. OR we have the option of paying $15 to get a parking permit so that we may park in the street in designated areas, provided that we are completely in the street and not touching the grass. If you are parked in the grass at all, you get a $50 ticket. Regardless of whether or not it's your grass. However, if you park in the street without a permit, you only get a $15 ticket. Can someone please explain to me how this makes any logical sense!? I have to say it seems like one of the most stupid things I've ever heard. It's enough to make me lean back toward my old anarchic ways. Why should the government have the right to make me pay them so that I can park on my family's privately owned property? We already pay taxes on the freaking property, is that not enough!? What next? Are we going to be fined for mis-arranging our lawn furniture? Will we have to pay a special tax to have a picnic table in our yard? Do they get to tell us what color we're allowed to paint our house!?

Obviously, I'm pretty pissed about this. I hope to contest the ticket if I can. I would just not pay it and send them a letter telling them where they could shove it if it weren't for the fact that they can suspend my license if I don't pay it. I have never in my life gotten a ticket, or even a warning, for anything until this started. I'm a good driver. I don't speed, I've never been pulled over, I don't park illegally, I follow all traffic and parking laws. Except this one. This is by far the most moronic parking restriction I've ever heard of. So now, I'll be parking in the back again. My old parking space from back when I drove Scuffers. That was my space then because it's under a bunch of trees so any car parked there would be filthy all the time, and Scuffers was the crappiest car at our house so it didn't make much difference if he was filthy or not. But now I actually have a nice car, so it was agreed that I could park in the front again. Eric refuses to park his big, stupid, ugly truck with a huge dent in it in the back, though, so I either get to park in the back or on the side and get a ticket. So my mustang, which I spent an entire weekend washing and waxing not long ago, is now covered in dirt, sticks, leaves, and bird crap from being parked under the trees for just one night. Fan-freaking-tastic. There's no sense washing it, either, because it'll just be filthy again by the next morning.

They caught the guy who robbed Rachel! XD I figured it was only a matter of time, because he was pretty sloppy. He left finger prints and all kinds of evidence everywhere. He didn't even have the sense to leave the state. Honestly, who robs a bank and then stays around town? This guy, apparently. Anyway, that's good news. Now Rachel doesn't have to worry about maybe running into him around town anymore. >_O Hopefully she'll be able to relax and start feeling better. She's been so stressed about it that she was feeling sick to her stomach and having trouble sleeping. o_o

I went to the comic book store on Wednesday. There were no new Transformers comics for me. u_u However, I did find some nifty action figures! I got a Wheeljack figure!

Wheeljack!

Okay, so technically he's Cybertron Downshift, but that character was totally patterned after G1 'Jack, so as far as I'm concerned he's Wheeljack. XP I also got Cybertron Smokescreen

Smokescreen

and Cybertron Blurr

Blurr

Generally I'm not so fond of Armada/Cybertron/Unicron Trilogy figures, but these ones have heavy enough G1 influences that I don't mind so much. Also, Eric is gonna' try to make a stop-motion animation music video with my action figures! XD That's gonna' be freakin' awesome. I'll post it when he gets it done. ^_^

So I went to work yesterday. It was okay. The highlight of the work day was definitely the drive to and from work. ~ <3 The mustang is SUPER fun to drive. However, while driving to work may have been the highlight of the day, it wasn't the the most dramatic event of the day.

Two of my younger sisters and I work at a bank. Same bank, different branches. I work in the north-side branch, Jess works in the south-side branch, and Rachel works in the west-side branch. Our awesome friend Autumn also works for the same bank as a float-teller, so she goes from branch to branch depending on who needs extra staff. Yesterday she was at the west-side with Rachel.

While I was at work, around 4:30, the phone rang (not unusual), and I answered it (also not unusual). The person on the other end of the line was nearly sobbing, and she asked to speak to me. It was Rachel calling, and she said she'd just been robbed. She's only been working at the bank for 2 1/2 months, and already some bastard robbed her! I was shocked, and I didn't know how to react. Part of me was just worried about Rachel, and another part of me was pissed off at that jack-ass for traumatizing my little sister. I didn't know what to say, but I told her she could stay the night with us if she wanted to.

When I got home, mom, Jess and Rachel were all there. We all sat around and got drunk while we listened to Rachel relay her story. Rachel's branch is the most heavily guarded branch of our bank. They have bullet-proof glass and all that kinda' stuff to shield the tellers from potential threats, because this particular branch is notorious for being robbed. Apparently this guy put a note in the pass-through drawer with the usual give-me-all-your-money demand, but he didn't quite know how the pass-through drawers worked. The customer needs to close their side of the drawer before the teller can open theirs, and when Rachel was trying to explain that to him he got pissed off and started being more aggressive. Eventually he put the drawer in so she could send out the money, and when she was closing her side of the drawer he ripped the front of his side of the drawer off, took the money, and left. I'm hesitant to say too much more than that, because it's a sensitive subject and I don't know how much I'm allowed to say without getting into trouble with the bank. But anyway... Rachel stayed the night with us. I think she's okay. Still rattled by the events, but she seems to be keeping it together...