Thanks for the Sunday morning chuckle, Jack, but what you wrote is getting closer to being real. Our city has changed all downtown parking to credit card by app. They stopped cash payments in the parking garages a few years ago, and we had to use ATM-like machines. Street parking was still the old coin machines, though. Now, every parking space requires payment by credit card but on an app that you have to download. WTF? Okay, for those who live here and make regular trips downtown, like lawyers going to court, the app may be justified, but what about visitors?? You and Deb come to visit and want to see the downtown area and grab dinner at a restaurant. You pull into a parking place and discover you have to stand there on the sidewalk downloading and setting up an app before you can pay. Is that how we encourage tourism?

I refuse to download another app just so I can park. Pre-Covid, Ben and I often went downtown for the Friday night open-air concerts, to the Hippodrome for plays and foreign movies, to dine at restaurants, and sometimes, just to walk around. Of course, we are still not "gathering" due to the pandemic that isn't over although the government says it is. But we would go downtown for take-out or for a Sunday morning stroll before everyone is out and about. To do that, we have to park, download the app, and pay for at least an hour. No thanks. Besides, now that my homeowners insurance has skyrocketed, I can't afford to eat out or go to plays and movies and I certainly can't afford to park downtown.