Well, Now, That's Much Worse

Every once in a while, Mark tempts fate by saying something like "Well, at least it couldn't get any worse."  Without fail, immediately thereafter things get worse.  For example, Blagoevgrad is currently going through a bit of a drought.  After seeing the low level of the river and the dry reservoir, Mark said, "Well, it couldn't get any worse."  Then he saw this:

Leave something to the imagination my friend.

Yep... that's worse.

Even things that should not be able to get any worse, can get worse.  For example, a visit to the dentist's office is one of the most feared experiences for many people.  There's a guy with rubber gloves reaching into your mouth, everything hurts, there are sharp objects flying around - bleech (not to mention that all of dentistry is a scam perpetrated by "Big Dental" - but that's a topic for another day).  How could that experience possibly get any worse?  I know, let's make into a public spectacle:

Yep, that's worse.

Mark walked past this dentist office on the way to work today.  The examination chair is right in the store front window.  So, you know, if you're minding your own business and happen to be walking by, you can go ahead and check in on someone else's discomfort/torture.  Does that make going to the dentist a little bit worse?  Yeah, I think so.

Ok, so let's get to why we are discussing this topic.  As has been discussed in this blog previously here, here (briefly), here and here, the parking situation in Bulgaria is a train wreck.  And, apparently, that's all cool.  Parking on the sidewalk - Cool.  Propping up the tire of your car after you have parked on the sidewalk - Awesome.

The writers of the blog have expressed the opinion that this type of parking is not necessary, but is probably done just to drive us crazy.  So what could possibly make that worse?  This:

You have got to be kidding me.

Seriously, after all of that crazy parking, THIS car gets a boot?  And who was the driver of this car?  You guessed it - Mark (he had borrowed the car to run errands).  Apparently, the car was not parked properly - which would men on the sidewalk - so it gets immediately booted (actually, in Blagoevgrad, if you want to park on the street you have to pay, but rather than having a meter there is an actual person walking around that you have to pay, even if you don't see that person when you park).  Eventually, Mark figured out what was going on and managed to get the boot removed after paying a penalty fee of 10 leva (about 7 bucks).  But the whole episode finally convinces Mark that this entire country is trying to drive him insane using nothing but the tools of parking and parking enforcement.... at least it can't get any worse.