Plea for Christmas clemency

Posted by Tara on February 2, 2015 in Blog, Living today | 1 comment

Trevor

Ha! Ha! You thought Christmas was all over, well not for my son-in-law who has been fined for going into London’s congestion charge zone at 5.35pm on Christmas Eve. For those who don’t know, the congestion charge stops at 6pm. He has written this letter in mitigation:

Dear TFL,

I’m writing to contest the Congestion Charge fine issued to me on 24 December 2014.

I’ll fully hold my hands up to entering the congestion zone without having paid, but, you see, I had good reason. I was on my way home to visit my family for Christmas, but just before I left I received a frantic call from my mother-in-law. Apparently Christmas Eve in Oxford has been fraught with chaos, for my great uncle Oscar’s enormous dog had come to stay (see photo). The dog, whose name is Trevor, is colossally overweight and has recently been put on a diet for his own good. Obviously it’s hard to get across even the fundamental cornerstones of good nutrition to a 120lb sheepdog, so Trevor isn’t taking it well, and has spent the last couple of weeks crazed with hunger. Unfortunately my mother-in-law didn’t realise the extent of Trevor’s savage meat-lust, and left the turkey out to thaw on the kitchen counter. Within minutes, Trevor had leapt onto the counter and grasped the half-frozen Christmas turkey in his slavering jaws. My mother-in-law, who in the chaos clearly forgot that even if she retrieved the stricken bird it wasn’t fit for human consumption, chased him around the house like a lunatic, shattering quite a nice vase and also Great Uncle Oscar’s ankle, which has caused him quite a lot of inconvenience as he is a tour guide for a living. Apparently it is difficult to dress up as a 15^th century townsperson in crutches. Ruins the authenticity, I’m told.

So at about 5:10pm I received this call from my mother-in-law, who begged me to stop by a supermarket – any supermarket – to pick up a replacement turkey. This was especially for the benefit of my small nephew – coincidentally called Tiny Tim – who had been learning about turkeys at preschool and was unnaturally excited to finally get to eat one. He’d given it a name – Gobbles – and had been checking up on it in the freezer and everything.  Fortunately Tim was upstairs having a nap when Trevor had his wicked way with Gobbles, but it was only a matter of time before he woke up and saw Trevor gnawing Gobbles’ legs off by the birdbath. My mother-in-law’s plan, to avoid an unholy temper tantrum on Christmas Eve (as well as ensuring that we all had something to eat), was to pull the old switcheroo on Gobbles. (Sort of like you would with a rabbit or a hamster…but, you know, cold, dead and headless.)

Ultimately, I was being asked to save Christmas.

I drove through London like a madman, trying to track down a decent turkey just hours before Santa was due to start his shift. You’ll be relieved to hear that I found one in the end, but in the panic of course I completely forgot about the congestion charge. It was only 35 minutes before it ended for the day too, which makes it particularly galling. And it was Christmas Eve. AND there was even someone involved called Tiny Tim, so it’s not like there isn’t a precedent for you letting me off.

Go on. Look what happened to old Ebenezer Scrooge. Don’t be like Scrooge.

Yours reasonably,

So we wait to see if Transport for London has a heart and a sense of humour. What do you think?