A T-Rex Gets a Ticket

Have you ever had a boss – that kind of boss – that makes you cringe when you think about them, even when you're not at work? I did, and I did something about it that I'm not really proud of, although I admit it made me feel great at the time.

Let me set the stage for working with her. Let's call her T-Rex, which seems more than appropriate for her. T-Rex was the kind of boss that called me to her office one day to remove her trash. That wasn't my job, but I did it. Yay, teamwork. Or, it would have been if maybe I received a "thank you" in return. But I did not. I received a large empty cardboard box placed on top of the can I was trying to remove. I could barely see over it, and since I had to take stairs out of her office, I put the can down, took the box off, and said I would be back for it. When I came back, in under five minutes, I was told I took too long. However, my favorite memory with T-Rex was when she called me into her office to tell me I was getting a promotion. This promotion meant I would be doing her job - yes, she actually said this – and working longer hours but receiving no more pay. When I declined this incredible offer, she told me I would then be cut to four hours a day and, therefore, lose my medical benefits. I contacted headquarters and was able to stop that from happening, no thanks to T-Rex.

Now that you have an idea of what it was like to work with this carnivore that lived on chewing up the joy of her employees, I will get to the story—the BIG CONFESSION. T-Rex parked every day in the handicapped parking. She was not handicapped and did not have a placard for parking there. She wasn't elderly and was healthy (except for her empty soul). She had no mobility problems whatsoever. We did not have anybody that needed handicapped parking in our office. And, our offices were tucked at the end of a cul-de-sac that was very quiet and had little traffic. Still, we had two marked handicapped spaces for guests or visitors, or they could remain empty – the main thing is she did not need one and should not take one. But she liked pulling her Mercedes in there so she could be upfront and remove the burden of having twenty extra steps to the front office door. I had a perfect view of the parking lot from my desk, and I would see T-Rex pull in late every day, smug as could be. Finally, I had enough. I went ahead and placed a call to the local police department and reported her. In about ten minutes, she had a shiny new ticket on her shiny new car. They are not inexpensive tickets to get. Not that it should have worried her, she always let us know she had plenty of money.

I don't think T-Rex suspected me at first. But the problem was, I made a mistake. I looked up the police's phone number and wrote it on the notepad in front of me before calling. If that wasn't smart enough, I wrote "police" next to the number. T-Rex liked to loom over my shoulder and criticize my every move anyhow. I should have thrown the note away when I was done, but I suppose I was on a bit of a high after my successful retribution attempt. T-Rex had come down to my desk to complain about the ticket's unfairness and saw my notepad. After I was caught, I still denied it. I got all red in the face and stammered that I only had the police phone number because I had a question about noise violations. That was the first thing I could think of to say in my defense. I'm sure she knew I was lying and always thought it was me who called the police after that moment. But, since T-Rex had no real proof it was me, she couldn't do anything about it. I suppose looking back on it now, she couldn't have done anything about it even if she had proof it was me. After all, she was the one who illegally parked.

At one time or another, I think every single person in the company asked me if I had done the deed and called the police on T-Rex. I denied it every single time. It got even stickier when I started dating someone, and his brother was T-Rex's boyfriend. When he tried to coax a confession out of me, saying he wouldn't care if I had done it, I looked at him with a big, blank stare and denied everything. I acted like I barely even remembered the incident when in reality, I thought about it a lot. Even though I had got a new job and out from under the control of T-Rex's thumb, now I saw her all the time at my boyfriend's house or on the dreaded double dates we had with his brother and her.

The funny thing is, now, I haven't seen T-Rex in probably ten years. She probably never thinks about that ticket anymore, but I think about it still. I'm no longer with that boyfriend, and so I certainly don't see his brother anymore. I don't even know if he ever came to his senses and ditched T-Rex or not. I have no idea what happened to any of the three of them. But I still think about the incident frequently. I guess because I try to be an honest person, I don't like lying. And, in that incident, I lied to so many people about it so many times. That's a hard reality for me. And, I stooped to her level, which I don't like. I think it's always nicer to take the higher road and be able to hold your head high. I also let her get the best of me and frustrate me instead of walk away from her nonsense. And for those reasons, as I said, I still think about it, when it's probably a long-forgotten memory for her. All that said, I don't regret it - I think she deserved it. She did something illegal and had to pay the price. And so now, finally, after all these years, I'm proud to loudly proclaim and admit to all – YES! I did it! I am the one who got T-Rex a ticket for parking in a handicapped spot! And, more importantly, I don't regret it. I'm sorry for the lying part, but when you're trying to defeat a tyrant lizard, sometimes you have to stoop low enough you don't become extinct yourself!