Curses!

Yesterday I encountered a dilemma the likes of which...well, I had never before encountered. I was at 12th & Walnut, and there I saw a Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) truck preparing to tow an illegally parked SUV. My natural loathing of the PPA instantly asserted itself, yet was rivaled by my equal contempt for SUV's. I didn't know what to feel. I hate the thought that the PPA was making more money, but at the same time I danced an internal jig of glee that some SUV owner was going to find himself sans vehicle, and thus temporarily unable to further degrade our environment and clog our streets with his behemoth, dangerous, conspicuously consumptive death machine. When I realized that the PPA was the cause of my glee, I was sent spinning through a hole in the fabric of time and space.

I've given it some thought, and I've decided that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, at least for now. By towing that SUV, the PPA is not only preventing for a day or two more damage and degradation, but is taking money from the owner to add to the city coffers, thus (indirectly) enriching me. Furthermore, as much as it galls me to admit it, the PPA does serve a useful purpose, at least in theory, by making sure that people don't hog parking spots all day. That SUV does nothing except suck up gasoline, make the highways less safe, and puff up the egos of those who drive them. Therefore, if the PPA wants to tow those suckers, I say, "Faster pussycat! Kill, kill!