The parking ticket grief cycle.

If you’ve never heard of the grief cycle, it’s five sequential stages of grief that will lead you to acceptance, the last stage. Defining the stages can help people who get stuck in grief to over come it. Here are the five stages of grief, applied to when we get parking tickets.

  1. Denial – This happens the moment you see the parking ticket on your windshield. You’ll check your watch to see how long you’ve been parked. You’ll read the street sign to see what you did wrong.
  2. Anger – This could be at yourself or some other external factor. Whatever the reason you got this ticket, you’ll be upset at.
  3. Bargaining – You might contemplate throwing the ticket out or ignoring it. You might even take it to court. You don’t want to pay this ticket.
  4. Depression – This happens as you’re writing your check or sending it to the government. You know the money will be taken out of your account, and you hate it.
  5. Acceptance – What’s done is done. You’ve learned your lesson. You won’t do it again, or so you tell yourself.

Parking tickets suck.

Photo from Flickr. Thanks Xraijs!


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