Throwing Pennies at a Parking Ticket
Why the emotional connections between people and a place mean everything
Listen to a reading of this piece by clicking the audio below:
It was the day before leading a workshop with Indiana Main Street, and having never been to Indianapolis, I drove down a bit early to explore, found a parking garage, grabbed my camera bag, and walked to the stairwell.
On the wall was a huge sign. Many of them, actually—bright yellow and all saying the same thing: “TICKET REQUIRED TO REENTER. TAKE IT WITH YOU.” I went back to the car and put the ticket in my pocket.
About five minutes after walking into the city, the ticket was gone. I couldn’t have lost it any faster. I checked every pocket, every piece of clothing, retraced every step—all the way back to the parking garage.
And there I saw a blue sign with white letters, announcing to the world both my shame and my fate:
LOST TICKET - $80.
Now, losing my ticket was 100% my fault, my responsibility, and because it was their garage, they had the right to punish me with whatever penalty they thought fit my crime.
But, along with being stunned, I was ANGRY.
“Unbelievable,” I said to myself, sending a flurry of text messages to anyone who would listen to my tale about being robbed by parking pirates in Indianapolis, punctuated by a series of audible and unintelligible grunts and groans in (what I’m told) my slightly you-must-be-from-somewhere-up-north accent. I was so frustrated, in fact, that I was ready to abandon my expedition into the capitalist bowels of Indiana—this den of thieves!—get back in the car, pay the ransom required for freedom from my cement shackles of vehicular bondage, and drive back to the hotel, with one–or maybe two—fingers in the air.
I didn’t want to see Indianapolis’s beautiful architecture, eat its wonderful food, or explore this place I had never been. I resented the city for my mistake, and wanted to rob the Crossroads of America of any chance to convince me that it was anything other than terrible. But then I thought better, bolder: Indianapolis might have taken every cent of my children’s college fund, but I couldn’t let it take my independence, too. I wanted, with my own two eyes, to look this dystopia in the face and say, “...you can take my money, but you can’t take my freedom.”
So, I turned around and walked back into a place I had never been. Despite my spite, the architecture was beautiful. My resentment didn’t make the food taste any less wonderful, and regardless of my close-mindedness, Indianapolis is quite a place to explore.
After a couple of hours, my anger running out of energy, I decided to walk back to the garage-shaped gallows and meet my fate. I was locked out of the stairwell without my ticket, and had to walk up every level of the parking ramp—a seven-story walk of shame.
Being introverted and socially anxious, I start rehearsing what to say to the attendant as soon as I get in the car.
Do I keep it casual? Maybe I should let them hear just a little frustration. No, I should fight against this injustice!
Or maybe…
….I come up with a lie…?
Pennies Falling from the Gondola
When I was in seventh grade, we went on a vacation to Disney World with my mom’s side of the family. Our cousins were a few years older than my brothers and I, so our parents set us free to run around the park by ourselves, and at one point, we hopped into the gondola transporting visitors across sections of the park.
While the saying goes that death and taxes are the only two certain things in life, there needs to be a third: putting a group of teenagers in a basket hanging by a wire forty feet in the air can only mean trouble.
Like a high stakes game of Plinko, we started dropping pennies from the gondola trying to “make baskets” in the garbage cans below. Our aim wasn’t good, coins ricocheting off the lids with us ducking out of view whenever we narrowly missed the oblivious park-goers below, but we cackled and cheered and kept trying anyway.
We passed an attendant standing in a tower, shaking his head, but we kept dropping our pennies. And there, as the gondola slowly descended and the ride came to an end, stood a security guard, arms folded with a look that said she was looking for us—and that we were in big trouble. We filed out of our seats and she ushered us away from the giggling children, the lollipops bigger than your face, and giant, Mickey Mouse-shaped sticks of cotton candy.
“Were you dropping coins from the gondola?” she asked.
Silence.
“I’m going to ask you again: were you dropping coins from the gondola?”
More silence.
Finally, buckling under the weight of embarrassment, shame, anxiety, and the overwhelming feeling that the happiest place on earth was quickly becoming very unhappy, I blurted out, “YES! WE WERE BEING DUMB AND WE. ARE. SO. SO. SORRY.” She looked at the five of us, staring back at her wide-eyed and soaked in our guilt, ready to accept whatever was going to happen next. “Thanks for telling the truth,” she said. “If you lied to me, I would have had to kick you out of the park. Don’t be dumb, and go have fun.”
I’m telling you, Disney World really is the happiest place on earth, so back in Indianapolis, I decide to tell the truth.
Pulling up to the gate, I push a blue button that says, “Press for Assistance”.
“Hello?” says a scratchy voice through a small speaker.
“Hey, so, I’m a dummy and lost my ticket,” I say. “Do I just swipe my credit card to pay the 80 bucks, or how does this work?”
Silence.
“What were you here for?” says the voice.
“I had never been to Indianapolis, and so I just parked here to walk around and check it out,” I say.
More silence.
“Just do better next time,” says the voice.
Then, a miracle: the gate arm lifts into the air and Disney World becomes the second happiest place on earth.
“I LOVE YOU INDIANAPOLIS!!!!!!!” I yell to the man, and drive away.
Back at the hotel, I sit on a slightly stained and fake-fancy chair, surrounded by old packets of tea and plastic cups, feeling a little bit ashamed of how I reacted and knowing I should have spent more time in a city I had never seen: a city with beautiful architecture and wonderful food. A city I met with anger, but left by saying, “I love you.”
From hating a city to loving a city, just like *that*.
But how?
Emotional Connections Mean Everything
Sure, you can chalk it up to my emotional instability, but there’s a lesson here I shared in the workshop the following day: the emotional connections people have with a place mean everything.
Emotional connections mean everything because they affect everything. Someone who is completely colorblind, seeing only black and white, can’t see the color of nice and fancy and useful things, no matter how nice or fancy or useful they are. We can shout, “But this is RED!” until we’re blue in the face, but to them, things will always be black and white.
In the same way, emotional connection is the lens through which we see a city. If my knowledge of and experience with a community is positive, I see both the good things and the bad things through the lens of love. I’ll proclaim the good things—Oh, there is just so much to do in downtown Hartsville and the people are so nice! Bad things are less likely to become an obstacle—but every place has its challenges—or I might invest my own time, energy, or money to help it improve––this needs work, and I’m willing to help us be the best we can be.
On the opposite side, if the relationship someone has with a place is negative or neglected, no amount of proof (But look at all the great things we have!), encouragement (Just give it a chance!), or deprecation (You wouldn’t be so negative if you were more informed and engaged) will get them to see red instead of black and white.
It’s likely not difficult to think of examples of this in your own community: think of a new development viewed as something great by part of the population, but as a disaster by the other. Think about “all the things to do” while others complain “there’s nothing to do.” Think about all the hard work looked at as not enough work, the right kind of work, or work that isn’t being done fast enough.
Gather and disseminate all the data and facts and information you’d like; through the lens of a negative emotional connection, it becomes propaganda, deception, or an outright lie.
The quality of relationships between people and a place go beyond what people think, because what we think is what we do. The success or failure of a community is determined by the decisions we make and the actions we take, and a majority of these are based on how we feel.
We are not rational creatures. As much as we’d like to pride ourselves on the idea that we’re driven by logic, information, and common sense, all it takes is a $100 GrubHub order that would have been $50 had we dined in, the purchase of a new boat, camper, gadget, or gizmo we’ll use a only couple times a year, or compulsively scrolling for hours on a device we know is an addiction making our lives worse, to understand that emotions are often the most significant factor in deciding what we do or don’t do.
Emotional connections determine whether people shop local or not, run for City Council or not, throw trash on the ground or not, continue living there or not. People won’t support a local restaurant if they don’t feel it’s worth it. They won’t become part of the government if they feel they can’t make a difference. They won’t invest or contribute if they don’t feel like those actions would be worthwhile.
People won’t take care of a community if they feel like it doesn’t take care of them, so if we want people to do things that will contribute to a community’s success, we also need to understand that there are prerequisites to those actions. We can’t just tell people what to do. It won’t work if we expect fellow citizens to agree with us, have the same values, or do the things we think are important.
If we want people to work together in the best interest of the community, they need to care about it first.
Want people to shop local? People need to care first. Want them to be more engaged in local politics? They need to care first. Want people to invest, embrace, and uplift the community? They need to care about it first.
When people don’t do those things, it’s likely they don’t care enough; something that shouldn’t surprise us, because that’s exactly how we operate, too.
Said bluntly, the reason why, even after hearing Sarah McLachlan sing “In the arms of an angel” over clips of crying dogs in a shelter, you didn’t donate to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: you didn’t care enough.
For people to do all the things that create a successful city, they need to care about it first.
But how?
Kindess, Communication, Competence, Community
Just like transportation needs infrastructure and the economy needs jobs, for a community to have a strong emotional infrastructure, it needs some things, too:
Kindness: acts of service, humility, generosity, and love
Communication: acts of listening, dialogue, vulnerability, and curiosity
Competence: effective actions performed at a high standard that improve people’s lives
Community: messages, experiences, and places that create, cultivate, and strengthen bonds between individuals, groups, demographics, and organizations
Indianapolis might have beautiful buildings and wonderful food, but without an act of kindness, back at home all I would have talked about was a parking ticket.
Had the man behind the intercom not asked me why I was there, he may have defaulted to a policy rather than being a person.
He could have defaulted to policy, but instead chose to do something to improve my life.
He could have shamed me for my mistake, but instead lightened the mood - an act of community.
Often disregarded as “warm and fuzzy” or unimportant, acts of Kindness, Communication, Competence, and Community are the foundations on which great places are built, essential elements of the human experience imperative to a community being a place people want to be.
Many of the most significant challenges our communities face can be attributed to the tearing of our social fabric, meaning we have to address those challenges socially. Repairing the roads won’t get people to be nicer to each other, adding seven jobs won’t improve communication, and building a new hotel won’t make people say, “This place feels like home”.
We need to be willing to admit that our blatant disregard for these “soft skills”, or said even better, the very things that make us human, is what got us here in the first place—and are what we need to get us out of it. Kindness creates care, Communication creates teamwork, Competence creates trust, and Community creates a sense of purpose and contribution.
Getting those $80 back feels great…but experiencing a place that made me feel good?
Even better.