The one who paid my $250 parking ticket late

Cory was adorable. A bit of a whiny, worrying, emo kid, but adorable. And he was about 9 years older than me.

I was an intern where he worked and was therefore off limits, as far as having a relationship went anyway. This didn't stop him from making comments that were blatant come-ons, but I was still supposedly off the table. He would even tell me this. "Our time will come if it's supposed to come" Cory would say, or something stupid like that. I think he had just gotten out of a serious on-and-off relationship that left him a little wounded. Timing IS everything ain't it.

Cory would come to where I was working and just kinda hang around. He was totally a grown up version of that dorky, four-eyed, over-eager boy in high school that you'd get annoyed with but know he really does mean well.

He made it clear to me that he liked me and that whatever kind of relationship I was up for (as long it wasn't a REAL relationship) would be fine with him: friends, lovers, mortal enemies, whatever.

I remember going over to his place a couple times, he wanted to show off his original Fela Kuti LP set and watch the Ramone's movie Rock'n'Roll High School. He said that I reminded him off the main character Riff who is madly in love with Joey Ramone and brings rock and roll to take over the oppressive school administration. It's so 1979.

So one time while I'm over there, it starts snowing, like hardcore blizzarding. So OF COURSE I can't go home. He invited me to stay, and even though there is talk of him sleeping on the couch, not surprisingly, I ended up in his bed and we had some fun. Nothing serious, or incredibly memorable, but it happened. Although I do remember that he was more attentive than most.

I get up the next morning and my car has been towed. Since it had snowed the night before, The city needed to plow the street that I parked on and gave me a freaking $250 dollar ticket! I tell Cory about it and he offers to pay it since his parents just sent him a generous check. So I give him the ticket and he pays it, supposedly.

A few weeks later I get a letter from the city saying that since they got the payment late, there is a late fee which needs to be paid. And that fee is DOUBLE the original ticket. I'm not about to pay another $250, I'm an intern, I work for free. And I'm definitely not about to ask Cory for another check, I felt weird enough about him paying the first time.

I had to ask Cory if he had indeed paid the ticket late. Did he have a copy of the check so that we could prove it to the city? No. Did he have the receipt? No. I could have gotten pissed at is lack of organization, or at his lack of responsibility if he did pay it late. But like I said, he did pay for it. He didn't have to. I couldn't get mad.

So I take it up with the city. I go to the courthouse, I fill out appeal forms. All I remember about that was that by the time I moved away months later, the matter hadn't really been officially settled. I just never heard about it again.

I saw Cory about three years later and had dinner with him and a friend of mine that he didn't know. He tells me about his new 23 year old girlfriend who he has a long distance relationship with (barf!) and casually brings up in front of my other friend that he and I had had a "tryst" once before. What the hell? I just looked at him and said "do we really need to talk about this here?" and dropped it.

I'm still trying to figure out if $250 was worth all of that.