This being a new month, I wanted to stay on trend and post about my favorite things from the previous month, but when I sat down to do it, I actually couldn’t think of anything new I loved in December that I didn’t already love in November. However, it’s only the 8^th of January and there’s already a growing list of simple-pleasures things tickling my fancy, so when February rolls around, there’ll be that.

So, what I thought I’d share with you today is an odd thing I never noticed anywhere before. Maybe it’s just me… you know how you can walk by something a million times and never notice it? This might be one of those things: I just recently became aware that some parking meters display messages. That is, they display information other than the amount of money left on the meter.

This, for instance, is a typical parking meter display:

This parking meter has no money left on it.

This was one of many parking meters in downtown Tempe that Callaghan and I passed as we were walking home one day a few weeks ago.  We were on Ash Ave., talking as we walked, as oblivious to the parking meters as always, having no need to take notice of them, but then Callaghan stopped and said, “Wait! Did you see that meter?” We went back to the meter in question. It said:

RIP, parking meter.

“I guess that meter is dead,” I said. “How thoughtful of it to let us know.”

Curious, we re-traced our steps to see if other meters would have anything interesting to report. Most of them displayed the -0:00 reading like the first one, but sure enough, another meter down the line read:

This parking meter is FAIL.

Clearly, the people who work for the City of Tempe enjoy this part of the job! Maybe they’ll see this post and know that someone was amused.