Time lost forever

I got a parking ticket about a month ago.

Normally, I'm very conscious of these things and I overpay meters just in case. However, the day that this citation was issued was a Sunday. After spending years in CoolCity for my undergraduate studies (a much larger city than LocalCity), I expected that the rules would be the same: no charge for Sundays. I didn't even bother to check. Alas, I was wrong and I found myself writing a check for $20 and mailing it to LocalCity the very next day.

Yesterday, I received a notice about delinquency in paying for the ticket. I'd misplaced my checkbook temporarily in my madness in preparing for all of my summer time away (3 full weeks of domestic and then international trips), and I finally found it this morning. I found the proof - the check's back-up copy- and I discovered by checking my online records that the check had been deposited at the very end of last month. Hmmm.

I called up the company, got lost in navigating through their automated system, and finally reached a live person. Despite my irritation with the situation (their incompetency was wasting my time), I spoke very pleasantly and matter-of-factly about the situation to the employee. It wasn't until the end of the phone call that the employee even acknowledged that there was some record of having received something from me (and this was more muttered under her breath than acknowledged directly to me), but she said that she would "research" the matter and that I would receive confirmation via snailmail. Hmm. I thanked her and promptly recorded all of the details of our conversation on the delinquency notice so that, in the event of future issues, I can refer to the phone call.