That’s Capitalism for you

Last Sunday hubby and I parked our car in a parking-lot outside a flower shop to buy my mother-in-law some flowers. We do that at the same shop almost every Sunday. Usually in Norway you don’t have to pay for parking on Sundays, so we didn’t bother to place my disability-card in the window of the car either. Most places this card entitles you to free parking at all times.

When we returned after 5 to 10 minutes, a “meter-man” was busy scribbling a parking-ticket on the hood of our car. Hubby ran up to him and asked him why he was doing that on a Sunday, and he pointed at a sign where it was written that you had to pay at all times, because this parking-lot was run by a private company and not by the local authorities. So I said to him that of course it was our fault not to have put my disability card in the front window. So far so good!

What really ****ed me off was when the “meter-man” replied that it wouldn’t have made any difference, because it wasn’t valid at their parking-lots! I guess you know how I felt on hearing this, so you can understand that I shouted after him that he should know he was working for a company spawned in h***! And when we looked at the ticket and saw that we had to pay the equivalent of $140 in Norwegian money I almost felt queasy! I still can feel it when I re-live the situation writing it now, several days later.

It’s frightening, really, when money matters more than people, and it happens all the time, even here in Norway where we are supposed to have a more lenient system. Tell me if my reaction to this is because I’m a spoilt citizen in a Social-democratic state with a well developed welfare system?