Losing a car parking ticket today was completely my fault. Guilty as charged, M'Lud. It somehow found its way out of my pocket as I went round Low Yat Plaza looking for, and finding, a certain pocket-sized electronic music and games device in readiness for Trixie's birthday. Duly purchased, complete with pink earphones and pink cover, I returned to the under-ground car park and discovered the car park ticket had gone. I searched the car, turned out my pockets and wallet, said lots of naughty words and the ticket did not appear. It was lost and I would have to pay the RM50 penalty fine for committing such a grave crime as losing a car parking ticket. (The cost of the parking would have been RM5.)
I went to the car park office, fuming with annoyance at my own carelessness, and grumpily mumbled that I had lost my ticket. An equally grumpy attendant gave me an equally grumpy response along with an A4 form to fill in. Immediately I questioned, in my head, why I had to fill in a form. Surely the matter was a simple one. I had lost the ticket that I needed to get validated before I could drive out of the car park. I had my RM 50 ( about £9.50) ready to reluctantly pay. When I was presented with the form I read it and saw red. My name, address, passport number, car registration, make of car, colour of car, entry time into car park (worth remembering that the car park advertised fixed price parking), and car tax expiry date were all required before a penalty ticket could be issued. Added to that a security officer was summoned. I had clearly committed a terrible crime.
I completed what I deemed to be necessary on the form (name, car reg , make of car and my signature) and handed it back. I decided that my passport number was not necessary and the car tax expiry was very definitely un-needed information in order to allow me to drive my fully licensed and insured vehicle out. Naturally this was not enough information for the officious idiot sitting behind her perspex screen. No passport number: no progress. The five foot tall and five foot wide sweating security man watched on. Stalemate. With great reluctance I handed over my Malaysian ID card and asked why I had to give this, what I believe to be completely unnecessary information over in order to pay what was, in reality, a punishment for my own carelessness. The answer? "Because we have to photo-copy it." This really is going too far.
The car park owners / operators do not need my passport number to process a simple tax on idiots. Hotels in Malaysia do not need my passport number or ID card in order to allow me to stay in a hotel that I have already paid for on-line, internet service providers do not need my passport number to provide wi-fi and piano repair companies do not need my passport number in order to cock up repairing the Lawrence family keyboard. It is all down to a matter of trust. Thank goodness the powers that be threw out utterly ridiculous plans to bring in ID cards in the UK. I am proud that the presumption among Britons is that you are who you say you are. That breeds trust and maturity between fellow citizens and also, the flip side, appropriate punishments for those who decide for whatever reasons to break that common trust. I can remember proudly pledging my support for the no to ID cards campaign fearing just the sort of ridiculous situation that happened to me today becoming the everyday in the UK.
However my ordeal was not over yet. In choosing not to fill in the car tax expiry section of the form (sometime in October just in case anyone really needs to know) the official would not hand over my penalty parking ticket. Instead I had to be walked to my car by the square security twit. Raging I set off at high speed leaving him having to waddle his fastest to keep within hollering distance of me. He puffed, panted and sweated. On reaching the car he looked for the tax disc and took down the unnecessary information. That was when the one amusing moment from this sorry tale happened. The security man was clearly short-sighted and struggled to read the disc but had to struggle even more to get his vast stomach between the passenger's door and the wall that I had parked very close to. I was in mood to offer any help at all.