Pennies
Parking tickets are infuriating. At best they can be called arbitrary, random annoyances you just have to put up with as part of our messed up culture. But as you dig deeper you realize they offer little benefit to society and are regressive taxes actively levied against the poor.
Long ago I worked as an assistant to a rich guy. I have yet to mention this horrifying chapter of my life in any of these weekly stories (maybe I will someday). But anyway among other things I often ran errands for him in San Francisco and when I complained how hard it was to find parking he said, "don't worry - park anywhere - I'll cover any fines." To me a $100 ticket was devastating. To him, it wasn't even a blip on the radar. Fuck that bullshit.
That cemented my bad attitude on the matter, and ever since I actively avoided all chances of getting a ticket. I'd circle forever to find kosher spots, or paid close attention to meters, or set up calendar alerts to remind me of streetsweeping, or even skip perfectly good spaces on the off chance it may seem illegal enough to some dunderheaded asshole cop.
However my best wasn't good enough, and I went outside to find some enraging piece of paper wedged underneath my windshield wiper. Fuck!! I forget the exact offense but I remember it was thirty bucks out the window. I was still in my 20's and far more of a smart ass than I am now. I couldn't just mail a check and be done with it - I had to make a statement of some kind.
So I went to the bank, waited in line, and once at the window asked for $30 in pennies. Mystified but compliant, the teller dug out sixty 50-cent rolls, which I put in a box and drove down to the office downtown where you can pay parking fines in person.
I got into that queue full of rightfully grumpy people. The guy in front of me noticed my box and the smirk on my face. I told him I brought pennies to pay my ticket, and his mood immediately brighetened, as did all the people ahead of me who caught wind of my microscopic act of civil disobedience. Making a few strangers happy was almost worth it.
The people behind me in line weren't as gleeful though, as I had to count out the rolls one by one for the man behind the counter. He blankly received each lump of currency. Once the payment was settled I headed out and got on with my life.