As the person to whom you probably mailed the package, I'm terribly, terribly sorry. :-)

heh. yes, that was an unlikely stroke of unluckiness.

I think Matt ought to appeal this ticket, pleading he was a victim of circumstances. The chain of events analogy to airplane crashes breaks down at the small amount of volition Matt is nevertheless responsible for. After all, rarely does a cockpit blackbox contain recordings of a crew member saying "Scr*w it!" preceding data indicating all controls pushed into a dive.

Too late for an appeal, MP. My tenner is my proud donation to the nuclear-free zone of Takoma Park, aka the People's Republic of Takoma Park. May they use it for an after school reading program. Or to fix that damn pothole at Carroll and 410.

Not to diminish your illustration of the butterfly principle... but if you go down the driveway in between the SunTrust and S&A Beads, there's a free parking lot. :>

As I said at the outset, I've led a sheltered life.

No sympathy from me. The city of Chicago once gave me a $100 ticket for parking in a snow zone (on an early November day that featured 70+ sunshine). The sign had big type that said SNOW ZONE -- NO PARKING WHEN 3' SNOW. After I got the ticket I noticed the very small type underneath (or after Nov. 1). And don't even get me started on Philadelphia. I'm convinced the meter maids have stopwatches, and that they start them the minute you pull to the curb.

I'll commiserate with Scott's dismay of Chicago's parking ticket ruthlessness. Even though I've since moved to Boston, I've now been trained to feed 2-3 times as much money into a meter as I possibly think I'll ever need -- it's worth it in the long run. Had I been at your post office I would have put in at least 50 cents.