THE UNAUTHORIZED HISTORY OF INVENTIONS

by Isidore (Izzy) Abrahami

THE INVENTION OF THE
P A R K I N G M E T E R

English: Parking meter
Dutch: Parkeermeter
French: Parcometre
German: Parkuhr
Latin: Parametrus status
Ancient
Greek: Metron morti.

Unlike many other inventions, the parking meter wasn't invented at first. It was found. The man who found it was the Dutch Sahara explorer Baron Schimmelpennincks van der Oye, in 1472.
The year 1472, found Baron Schimmelpennincks van der Oye, exploring the Sahara. He was all alone except for his loyal German poodle Jacob, named after the great Jacoba van Beieren.
The major problem Baron Schimmelpennincks van der Oye had to face was that there were no trees in the Sahara at the time, and the unfortunate poodle wasn't able to relieve himself. Being a sensible gentleman, the Baron realized that if a solution wouldn't be found within days, Jacob the poodle might die.
On Friday night, April 18, 1472, the poodle was desperately yelping. Unable to sleep, the Baron got up and began pacing up and down the Sahara. Suddenly, he stumbled on something that turned out to be a metal pole with a small transparent box mounted on its top. Examining it carefully, the Baron discovered a coin slot and a tiny arrow inside the clear box.
This was the parking meter! But, no one knew it yet.
Baron van der Oye didn't panic. He carried the pole back to his Sahara quarters, stuck it onto the sand with the clear box up, and tied to it his poodle Jacob, hoping that the poor dog would mistake it for a tree and finally would relieve himself.
The dog, not being fooled by the metal pole and not being used to being tied up, barked helplessly for almost a week. But on the seventh day he pissed.
This relieved the Baron greatly. For a short time, though. Three weeks later the dog was dead.
Many desert travelers who had seen the frantically barking dog, tied up to the metal pole, called it: THE BARKING METER.
There should be no wonder then, that the ancient Greeks, retrospectively called the Barking Meter: Metron Morti, or the one-meter of death.
It's most distressing to note that with the passing of the centuries and the declining of linguistics, the Barking Meter, would come to be known as the Parking Meter.
In great grief and excruciating pain, Baron van der Oye, took the Barking Meter as a remembrance of his beloved poodle and brought it to England. It is understandable that the Baron didn't want to return to Holland, his birth place, in such an emotional state.
As soon as he landed in England, the British customs' officials confiscated the Barking Meter and imprisoned the Baron for stealing archaeological treasures from the Sahara.
Upon hearing of the Barking Meter, the British monarch, King Edward the 4th, at once recognized its excellent business potential. He ordered the Baron released and exiled, and with the help of a few of his ministers, he started manufacturing thousands of identical Barking Meters, advertising them as: "OBJECTS FOR MULTIPLE USE."
The King listed ten possible uses including: Wife battering, savings' box, or dog's portable toilet.
The King wasn't fooling around. He knew what he was doing. He priced them quite highly, so as to be affordable only to the English upper class. It was a business strategy that proved to be right: the Barking Meter became an all-time status symbol.
There isn't a solid proof, but it's reasonable to assume that the making of the British Barking Meter into a status symbol, served as the origin of its Latin name: Parametrus Status.
Twenty years later, with the death of the Baron, who in the meantime had died in extreme poverty in Groningen, his birth place, and following the death of the by then multi-millionaire, King Edward the 4th, who was assassinated by being clubbed to death with one of his own Barking Meters, the possession of the Barking Meter was prohibited in England.
In the course of the next few years, the Barking Meters' black market flourished. The prices soared to new heights. But with the publication of Maria van Bourgondie's "Great Privilege Law," which asserted that some of the materials used in the manufacturing of the Barking Meter, was one of the causes of throat cancer, the Barking Meter practically disappeared.
Four hundred sixty four years later, it surfaced again. It was re-invented by Carlton C. Magee, from Oklahoma, U.S.A., in 1935.
Mr. Magee re-invented the Barking Meter on orders from a high CIA official who wrote to him a letter: "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY," telling him that this covert operation was highly sensitive.
"I take it upon myself," The official wrote, "to shield the President of the United States and my boss at the company, both of whom, as you would understand, stand fully behind this operation. Therefore, I deem it my patriotic duty to assume full responsibility for this action!"
Upon receiving the letter, Mr. Magee placed a wire to Washington and talked to the CIA official. (Unfortunately, the official's name is not to be found in any of the existing records. We suspect that his name is not mentioned even in the non-existing records, so covert the operation was.)
The main concern of Mr. Magee, who held high moral standards, in talking with the CIA official was of what would the purpose of re-inventing the Barking Meter be. What is it going to be used for.
The CIA official assured him on the phone that the Barking Meter would only be used for peaceful purposes, that any of its uses, whatever they might be, would be in accordance with the American constitution, and its re-invention would benefit each and everyone of the American people.
Mr. Magee's first Barking Meter was completed on March 7, 1936.
It was sent to Washington DC through the usual secret channels and when it was received, it sparked a debate in the highest political levels as to its possible uses.
Only a handful of clandestinely written documents establishing the reasons of the politicians to re-invent the Barking Meter, are in our possession. One of them is a letter written by the deposed German President Mr. Hindenburg, from which we'll quote.
"...I suggest that you do not sell the Barking Meters to individuals, as His Majesty King Edward the 4th, had done. I humbly suggest that you erect them on the streets and instruct people to insert coins in their slots, and no matter what reasons for doing so you'd give them, they'll eat it as always.
The government of the people is stronger than the people!
Once the obedient citizens will see these little monsters on every street corner, with the government emblem engraved on them, they'll be standing on line in order to feed them with their coins, be they their last. And yet, the Barking Meters would still remain your property. It's a no-lose situation. And it's a better business.
I trust that my advice, if enacted, deserves a small contribution on your part toward my livelihood. I'd appreciate anything.
Do not ask me of how I heard about your Barking Meters' covert operation. I still have friends in many highly important corridors.
Respectfully Yours,
Hindenburg, President.”
Hindenburg's letter came right on time. It came just at the time when the car industry in the United States was growing rapidly and roads were being built in every corner of America. Hindenburg's letter inspired the politicians to approach the problem from a different angle than that of King Edward the 4th. And within days they knew the answer:
The Barking Meter turned to be the Parking Meter.
They paid Hindenburg the sum of $500 for his advice, and sent him a thank-you letter signed by F.D. Roosevelt, the then, president of the United States.
Nowhere in the letter there is a mention of the Parking meter covert operation.
On Oct. 1, 1938, merely a few hours before Orson Welles' radio broadcast of the dramatization of War of the Worlds depicting a Martian invasion of the US, which convinced hundreds of thousands of Americans that they were being attacked by creatures from outer space, the first Parking Meter was installed in New York City, on Madison Ave. (Corner of 58th St.)
On June 6, 1944, known otherwise as the D-Day, one of America's last Parking Meters was installed in Wall Street in Downtown Manhattan.
As Hindenburg predicted, people obediently fed the fifty one million, six hundred thousand and forty one parking meters that were erected all across the United States of America.
This is the exact, detailed, unbiased though unauthorized history of how, why and by whom the parking meter, as we know it today, was invented, and how it had evolved throughout the ages.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 14.06.2010

Alle Rechte vorbehalten