Bad Parking Karma

When I worked in the recording studio in LA I started as a running. A runner is a person that is trying to work his way into the industry and is responsible for all the work that noboby in their right mind or that has been there for awhile would ever do. Resposibilties start off with the most important task: feeding people. The studio uses this task of being a waiter at 400 Hollywood restaurants as a test to see if you are capable of handeling some actual studio responsibilities. "If you can't get my hamburger right how can I trust you to not erase the vocals" is a phrase often used* by people working on a session.  Being a waiter at 400 restaurants requires a lot of driving around town which means a lot of parking.

I always tried to park legally while on runs. It just wasn't worth the risk of getting a ticket on my crappy salary (minimum wage) and since you do visit the same places all the time you learn the parking tricks near each restaurant.

It was a hot summer day and the studio was very busy. It was a Saturday and it was lunch time. We were short a runner and the runs were piling up. I was in an extremely cranky mood.

Studio D rang up to the front desk after I had just completed the last lunch run and needed a runner. I headed back to the studio took their order and headed off to Melrose ave. where the closest Jamba Juice is.  Melrose is a shopping hang out. A hip and trendy place were parking spaces are given out less often then those stars on the sidewalk and it was a Saturday.

Great.

After 25 minutes of driving around in the heat I decided to park in the bus zone directly out side of Jamba. Really, how long could it take to make 5 fruit smoothies.
I ran in, placed my order and kept my eye on the car. As they were making the band's smoothies I decided to order a smoothie for myself, after all it was hot and I was annoyed enough that I thought the band should buy me a smoothie whether they knew it or not.  As they were making my smoothie I glanced over to my car just as the parking maid pulled up behind it.

I ran out and was halfway in the car before he was even out of his car when I heard him scream "it's too late".
He handed me my ticket.  Annoyed, I figured I would leave the car there while I picked up the smoothies, what was he going to do, give me another ticket?

It wasn't until I got back in the car that I noticed how much the ticket was for: $270.00!

$270.00 was a lot to pay for a free smoothie.  Lesson learned.  Park legally.  Don't buy smoothies on the record labels dime.

Sometimes you get lucky.  Sometimes you don't.