Indeed, there can be no more disgusting a sight than a tightlipped, grumble-faced Meter Maid hovering around your neighborhood looking for victims. These sick and mindless creatures will prey upon any unguarded vehicle and can usually act out their most brutal fantasies in less than 5 minutes. Only horror awaits those who discover one of these surrogate leeches, sent out by the Police Department to collect ransoms for their heinous crimes, attached to your loved one. Once this act of aggression has started there is only one ending, and you are better off averting your eyes from the crime scene.

If, however, you come to your post-traumatic car later there may be little evidence to suggest that a raping has occurred. But look carefully; although your car may appear clean, the Meter Maid will almost always leave a handwritten note bragging about having violated your vehicle. This calling card is a parking ticket, and there is nothing covert about it. Its payment goes into a hush fund to pad police coffers, provide privileges for police pension plans and approve patrol car paint jobs. And you have been pinched for their pleasure.

Once a parking ticket has been received, be forewarned, for the area in which your vehicle was lonesomely left is dangerous and further rapes may occur on future dates.

There are some things you can do to alleviate the stress, anger, and sense of violation one feels when a rape ticket is received. For instance: cursing is effective, as is fantasizing about demolishing cop cars with a hand sledgehammer and a 3-foot iron crowbar. And for safe and easy fun, try applying no parking stickers to DMV patrol cars when you see them (you can purchase said stickers from several mail order catalogs.) However, as a parking ticket is an indirect result of a cheerless, headstrong and fetishistic bureaucracy, it is often a better method to confound the predators with some of their own niggling procedure. This can be done in a written manner, or in court. To wit:

1. Technicality. Parking tickets can be contested on technical grounds very effectively. For instance, sloppy handwriting may get you off if the date becomes illegible, or the street sign indication isn't legible, or one digit on your license plate number is off. Anything. Look hard and then have a friend peruse the ticket for things you may have missed. Recently I got out of two tickets, one because the street location was illegible and the second because the make and color of the car was not filled in.

1a. Check the Boxes. Additionally, tickets can be easily contested and thrown out of court if they are not filled out properly, or not filled out entirely. Check and make sure every single box is filled out with some sort of information. And if it is, remember that you can contest every piece of information on the ticket as being false.

1b. You Can Run. In conjunction with 1a, it should be noted that despite what the sinister Meter Maid may say, once they have started writing a ticket, you CAN get away. For a long time I believed it to be true that once pen was put to paper you were fucked dead on, violated by an exhibitionist no less. But in fact, if you hop in your car, tell the Meter Maid to go jiggle herself (or himself) and bolt the scene, chances are the ticket will not have been filled out completely and you will be scot free. I have done this once so far and it has yet to show up as a ticket. It may have been one of the more enjoyable experiences in my short life.

2. Bald-faced lying works. Partially because cops are such good liars, this method is also effective in court. Try making up outrageous excuses and sticking to your guns forcefully. Pretend you are Don King on the stand facing charges of tax evasion and racketeering. Or the Louima cops. Make up some really weird claim and then lie through your teeth, and smile, and this will confuse the judges who never fully expect the public to be just as duplicitous as the police department. I have successfully gotten out of one ticket so far with this method.

3. Use the Atomic Clock. This technique is an ingenious combination of the first two, and was sent in by Mr. Jim DeSeve, also of Brooklyn, who is an expert at getting out of unjust tickets. Many violations are issued immediately after the illegal times on a street sign indicate. In other words, if your car is parked on a street that has a "no parking 8:00 am Wednesdays - street cleaning" sign, then chances are the serial rapists, addicted to their grisly deeds, will want to pounce on your car as soon as possible. Thus you may receive tickets that are, say, 5-10 minutes after the legal parking times. However, it can be argued that the Meter Maids, in their own salacious world, were not fully aware of the correct time. In your case, the Atomic Clock time, to which your watch is set and has been since the Atomic Clock was made available over the web, indicated that the time was exactly 7:59 when you got to your car, as you do every single day, because you are an anal fuckwad just like the Meter Maids. Anal fuckwad versus anal, vindictive dipshit. Who can argue with that?

4. Rip down the street signs. I really, really had a strong urge to make this one work. All you need is a really big crowbar, preferably 3-foot and iron and some industrial bolt cutters (available for $67.95 in a catalog of industrial equipment), a helper to watch out for the rollers, quick feet and good knowledge of your neighborhood. Remember, tampering with street signs is a Federal crime, so be careful. After you have torn down all the street signs on your block, take a picture, and try everything to post-date the photograph to the day your car was victimized.

It also helps to know what you are up against. Here are three types of sickos your car may witness.

1. The Meter Maid. These predators are always snarling. They are bitter and repressed and will gladly act out a series of contorted facial expressions with all interested. Sometimes they wear orange crossing-guard costumes. Usually they haven't had enough coffee, or way too much. Despite being ubiquitous, they seem to hide themselves very effectively and may not be spotted at first glance. If you find their car, then you can be assured one or more of them are in your area.

2. The Automaton. Found in most cities except not yet New York. I have been automaticized in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Atlanta. Instead of a handwritten ticket, you will find a computerized print-out that records the minute action of the machine's penetration of your car. Details are usually accurate, illegibility is moot. Sometimes these automatons use information gathered from your car's registration stickers. This is called Systemic Abuse.

3. The Three-Wheeled Complex. You know to what I refer: those mini-car-carts that roam neighborhoods and crime-free areas. The problem is that no self-respecting officer, and usually they are men who drive these insufficient vehicles, will be caught dead in one. Officers are assigned these carts for simple incompetency on the work force. They are an obvious disgrace to cops, and those stuck in one will suffer greatly from Car Envy. So when they find a nice, large, healthy car they will unerringly act out their fantasies and alleviate their car complex by appropriating the object of their envy. These kinds of rapes are by far the most sick. Fortunately they occur less frequently, although with a much greater ferocity. Three-Wheeled-Complex are nearly impossible to spot before parking and should also be considered armed and dangerous. Insulting a Three-Wheeled Complex is a good idea and may work, but the insults must be administered heavily and frequently. True story: I once received SEVEN parking tickets in a record 10 minutes by one of these repressed creatures.

• • •

Many have asked: the tickets were for: illegal parking Indiana plate, illegal parking NY plate, expired Indiana registration sticker, improperly displayed NY plate, upside-down registration New York, no match-plate sticker NY (whathefuck?) and no New York front plate. Seven tickets in less than 10 minutes, and all were filled out completely.

--Tony Leonardo