Fraud in the city

While we were in California we came across some extra friendly people….Annabelle at Hertz rental car, the guy on the shuttle who complimented Cameron on his ring, the parking lot attendant. Oh wait did I say parking lot attendant….rewind. Cameron and I drove into the city and met up with his family in downtown San Francisco. We found this parking lot and pulled in, we always take BART into the city, but this time we drove. I was a little concerned parking would be ultra expensive like parking in downtown Boston was ($50), but when we pulled into this lot and it was only $10 I thought we were in luck. We were greeted by an overly cheerful man who commented how young we were and how we would have no problem walking the distance to Pier 39 etc. He put our ticket on our dashboard and told us where to park. As we pulled away from him I even commented, “We sure have met some friendly people on this trip”. Cameron concurred. We parked and then walked approximately two miles to Pier 39 (so much for being close) We had a great time downtown and then we made our way back to our car. As we approached our car we saw something resembling a parking ticket on our windshield, I brushed it off as probably a menu or something. BUT low and behold it was a parking ticket. Angry, tired and feeling taken advantage of we put two and two together. I have actually seen similar scams on the news at home, but to be one of the victims hurt. I usually do not rapidly hand out compliments about strangers behavior because 9 times out of 10 we get horrible service, rude people and long lines. Now, all of it made sense, the laughing and good humor was not friendliness, but sinisterness. He was happy because he made $10 off of us, probably to feed some bad habit and not to help the needy. The irony of it all was that I have commented on how great he was. You hate to not trust people, but things like this unfortunately go against my belief that most people are generally good. This man was rotten and if I lived close I would go back to that lot and give him a piece of my mind.