Photo by: Sascha Darlington
Officer Terkel hated working the Parking Enforcement duty. It was obvious punishment. Terkel sighed as he walked along the wet sidewalk. Sleeping with the Police Chief’s wife was fun, but stupid.
Suffice to say, he didn’t take his job very seriously.
He was bored out of his mind.
Then he noted an alien spaceship had landed in a blocked-off area of the parking lot. He doubted they’d pay a parking ticket, so he booted the landing gear, and waited.
As he expected the aliens just sneered at him when they returned. But when they tried to take off, the boot jammed the landing gear and the ship refused to take off.
Terkel lit a cigarette and watched.
The aliens returned looking sheepish. Terkel demanded the $75.00 payment.
Of course, they had no money, so they gave him a device. Terkel accepted the bribe and let them go.
He took the glimmering thing to Francis, a NASA engineer.
“He said it’s a hyperdrive, whatever that is,” said Terkel. “Swore it’s worth bucks.”
Francis’ eyes glittered. He imagined Earth as an interstellar civilization, his name on every starship.
“Gee sorry,” said Francis. “They conned you, but I’ll give you fifty bucks for it.”
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Written for Sunday Photo Fiction: https://sundayphotofictioner.wordpress.com/2018/02/18/sunday-photo-fiction-february-18th-2018/
Author’s Notes:
For the longest time I had never heard of a Parking Boot. So just in case others haven’t heard of them:
Parking Boot: “…A wheel clamp, also known as wheel boot, parking boot, or Denver boot,[1][2] is a device that is designed to prevent vehicles from being moved…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_clamp
EagleAye
Momus News 
I wonder… do police that apply a wheel clamp have to spend time in purgatory? https://clemenssuter.com/?s=Purgatory&submit=Search
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Yeah, we call them wheel clamps over here. Really annoying, but I like where they took your story.
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Hehe. Usually you don’t go far with a boot. 😉 Thanks much Iain!
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Surprised they didn’t just ray gun the boot off.
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And risk damaging the landing gear? No way. The hyperactive was a giveaway from a tech conference anyway. Cost them nothing. 😉
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LOL. Wait until we use it to visit their neighborhood.
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Eric, you seem to have a lot of aliens ambling around your tales.
Is there something you want to tell us?
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Haha! You’re on to me, you beast! They say write what you know, so I write about aliens. Yes, I am an alien. It’s painful keeping these antennae folded back all the time. 😉
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You painted an amusing story, until we got to Francis.
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Bummer. Sorry you didn’t enjoy Francis. Was he too much of an opportunist?
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well done.
as tourists among us, the aliens seems to fall prey to the same problems as the rest of us, especially when visiting foreign countries
cheers.
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It seems so. Perhaps they should’ve read through the travel blogs for advance warning before coming to Earth. 😉
Thank you!
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Brilliant story! We have those things here (wheel boots – not aliens…well, I think we don’t have aliens…) – we call the things ‘wheel clamps’ and they are usually wielded by brain-dead authoritarian thugs who wouldn’t have been far out of place in the Gestapo. These people are mostly employed by private parking companies whose main function appears to be to intimidate innocent members of the public into paying cash up front to release their cars, and who have no respect for the law, human rights or even the limits to their power, which most of them consider to be godlike. There were some incidents in Wellington where cars OUTSIDE a parking lot were clamped by these morons. I’ve never had the problem myself but it’s a powerful deterrent to anybody actually daring to park their car in the city. Gaaah! Would that they accidentally clamped some alien tourists and their spaceship… that’d be fun to watch! 🙂
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Haha! I’m pretty sure all those guys are the clones of former Gestapo officers. Apparently a relative of Josef Mengele collected DNA samples and set up shop in Uraguay. So these parking people are “The Boys from Uraguay.” 😉
I’ve never been booted or wheel clamped myself. I have been ticketed before apparently by a cop whose salary was paid by the ticket.
I might have to write a longer piece where a parking cop clamps a spaceship. Could be fun. 😉 Thanks Matthew!
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Ha ha ha. Good fun. I hope the aliens don’t adopt the wheel clamp in their planet now.
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They might, especially after seeing how effective it is. 😉 Glad you had fun, and thank you!
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