The theory says there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes.
An appendix to that theory says that once you’re dead, you still get taxed or, at least, your heirs get taxed. And now I think you’ve got to add an addendum to the appendix. Something about how they’ll still come after you about parking tickets, even if you’re dead and your car got stolen months before it was ticketed.
Death is supposed to have a certain finality to it. But nothing is final when the bureaucratic mentality is at work. A guy named Joe Bria has been trying to settle his mom’s estate. In the middle of all the millions of details he had to deal with, he got a notice from the City of Chicago that his mom had a parking ticket. But the ticket had been issued three months after the car was stolen. Maybe the thief should have to pay the ticket?
Well, that’s not so hard to believe some computer churning out an automatic notification. What’s hard to believe is that Chicago’s Department of Revenue wouldn’t just kill the ticket once the situation had been explained to them. Joe thought the combination of the police report and death certificate would take care of things. But the city told him, no, only the registered owner can protest a ticket.
Well, I’d just love to comment on all this really, I would but it’s . . . it’s too big for me. You need a true comic genius to handle this one. So I’m turning it over to Jerry Seinfeld.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.