An incident with a parking meter reminded Wyn Drabble of lining up outside a phone box in London. Photo / NZME
An incident with a parking meter reminded Wyn Drabble of lining up outside a phone box in London. Photo / NZME
By accident rather than design, I've found a good little earner.
I can't be too specific about the location or everyone will flock to it. Suffice to say it is somewhere in the CBD of the provincial town of Napier.
I parked my car and was delighted to note therewas a single dollar coin in my coin tray, plenty to cover my intended parking period.
I popped my coin into the parking machine – it was one of those you have to take a ticket from to display on your dashboard – and it went straight through the system and came out the returned coins slot.
I tried it again. It still did not issue me with a ticket, but again it gave me my dollar back. Plus a 50¢ coin.
Third time lucky, I thought. I reinserted my dollar. Success at last. Out came the ticket and as I retrieved it, a coin fell into the returned coins slot. It was a 20¢ piece, as shiny as a shiny thing.
I was a winner. With the 50¢ coin and the 20¢cent coin, I had paid only 30¢ for a dollar's worth of parking. I could have played the system and kept amassing funds, but I felt that would draw attention to my generous parking machine so I simply went about my other business.
It reminded me of something that happened when I was living in London in the 1970s. Word soon spread there was a shonky phone in the vestibule of one of the many railway stations.
During the 70s, toll calls were pretty special and many people needed to save up for them. It was nothing like today's system, which makes overseas calls cheaper and even commonplace.
It wasn't the simplest system and it's impossible to imagine how somebody discovered it. With overseas codes and all, the numbers were very long but, to make my explanation simpler, I will use the imaginary, shortened phone number 628.
You had to subtract each number from 10, which meant the number was now 482. Then you had to tap the switch (that's what I'll call the thing you hang up the receiver on) four times quickly, pause slightly, tap eight times quickly, pause slightly, tap two times quickly. That got you through to the intended recipient, which is why I joined the queue and phoned New Zealand.
It took a lot of tapping. You couldn't afford to make an error as that would mean closing down the whole operation and starting again.
When I returned next time, the very international queue was snaking round the block. News of free stuff travels pretty quickly. Cypriots, Greeks, West Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and Australasians waited for their tap-and-talk time.
Tempers started to fray a little further down the line if a tap-talker went on for too long. There was no agreed, acceptable length of time, but if someone felt your communication was too lengthy you quickly got the message via body language or verbal abuse. In various languages.
The huge queues eventually attracted too much attention and the authorities had to investigate why so many people were attracted to one particular phone. Soon afterwards it was "fixed" and attracted no queues.
Wyn Drabble
Based on that model, I will proceed very cautiously with my parking station earner. I might, for example, work under cover of darkness.
So, if you're a midnight motorist and see a furtive figure loitering around a public pay station, pay no attention. It's probably just routine maintenance being performed.
If you hear the furtive figure shout "Bingo!" you might quickly park your car and negotiate for a share of the takings.
Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.
