What's not meant to be will never be

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Yesterday I decided to take the train to work instead of driving. I parked opposite the station, at a public car park where a full day’s parking rate is at $5. Armed with a bunch of coins, I slotted them in one after another. When I was pushing in the last coin, the machine refused the coin over and over. This isn't the first time I experienced this. Previous times, I cancelled the whole transaction and started slotting in the coins again from scratch. But whenever I reached the last coin, the machine just blocked the entry and there's nothing I could do.

I managed to put in $4.50 and that gave me valid parking until 3.30pm. I didn't know what else to do. I was rushing to work and couldn't get enough time on my parking ticket. So I just used it and hoped for the best.

At work, I told my colleague about it and said I hope I don't get fined. You know, I'm not lucky at striking lottery, but this I struck! When I collected my car later that evening, my heart sank when I saw a piece of paper neatly tucked under my wiper on the windscreen.

As I drove home, I was feeling really upset about the fine. It's not that I didn't want to pay full price, but what can I do if the machine refused my money? I felt unjustified that I have to pay a fine of $30 all because of a faulty machine.

I was examining the fine closely when suddenly, I burst out laughing and had the biggest grin on my face afterwards. That's when it hit me: God sees to it that people don't get slapped with what they don't deserve. You see, the person who issued the summon keyed in the wrong car registration number! Instead of an M, it was keyed in as N.

Don't you think that when something is not meant to be, no matter how much you force it, it just won't be?

2 comments:

My Rantings said...

Good for you that the guy couldn't tell the difference between an "M" and an "N"! :-)

Eternity said...

yeah, so close yet so far... :)