My name is Alex, I’m 32, and I live in San Francisco. If you’ve ever parked a car in this city, you already know it’s basically a competitive sport.
Between street cleaning schedules, confusing curb colors, and parking meters that seem to change rules every two hours, finding a legal spot sometimes feels like solving a puzzle designed by someone who hates drivers.
But what happened to me last Tuesday was something I still can’t fully explain.
I had parked my car on a quiet side street near my apartment the night before. It was a regular parallel parking space, clearly marked, with two other cars parked in front of and behind me.
Before leaving the car, I did my usual routine.
Check the curb color.
Check for street cleaning signs.
Check for any “No Parking” notices.
Everything looked completely normal.
So I locked the car and went inside.
The next morning I walked outside to head to work and immediately noticed something strange on my windshield.
A yellow Post-it note was stuck under the wiper.
At first I assumed it was just some random piece of trash that had blown onto the car overnight.
But when I pulled it off, I saw writing on it.
It said:
“Blocking sidewalk — citation issued.”
That was it.
No official city envelope.
No printed ticket.
Just a handwritten message on a sticky note.
Naturally I looked around my car to figure out what they were talking about.
The car was completely inside the parking space.
The bumper wasn’t hanging over the curb.
The wheels were nowhere near the sidewalk.
In fact, there was at least a foot of space between the front of my car and the end of the painted line.
I even walked around the block to see if there were any unusual parking rules I had missed.
Nothing.
Just a normal street with normal parking.
For a moment I wondered if maybe the actual ticket had blown away and someone had written a note explaining it.
So I checked the windshield again carefully.
No official citation.
No envelope.
Just the Post-it note.
I stood there for a solid minute trying to figure out if this was some kind of prank.
Eventually I took a picture of the note and drove to work.
Later that day I checked the city’s online parking citation system to see if maybe the ticket had been entered digitally.
Nothing.
No record of any citation connected to my license plate.
Which only made the situation more confusing.
At this point I have three possible theories.
Theory one: a parking officer actually wrote a ticket but ran out of official forms and used a sticky note instead.
Theory two: a random neighbor decided to enforce sidewalk etiquette personally.
Theory three: someone just really enjoys leaving mysterious parking warnings on strangers’ cars.
The strangest part is that I’ve parked on that street multiple times since then and nothing else has happened.
No tickets.
No notes.
No angry messages.
Just normal parking.
But I still keep that Post-it note in my car now as a reminder.
Because apparently in San Francisco, even when you park perfectly inside the lines…
You might still get the world’s most unofficial parking ticket.
