Some who read “This Seniors Voice” know the writer is a 71-year-old senior. At my age (our age perhaps) we’ve faced, overcome, worked through, resolved, and encountered a wide array of life’s challenges including, may I add, the parking meter.

I don’t use exclamation points very often. As you’ll see, this last one hits the bullseye of the target called clarity.  When you get into a fight with a parking meter, you’re entitled to your exclamation point.

But first, a bit of history. The first coin-operated parking meter was designed in 1935 by two engineering professors out of Oklahoma State University: Holger George Thuesen and Gerald A. Hale. It was an American lawyer and newspaper publisher named Carlton “Carl” Cole Magee, born in Iowa, who patented the first parking meter and partnered with Hale to form the Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter Company in Oklahoma, the first of its kind.

Using a parking meter was a piece of cake.  You put a nickel in the slot, it slid down into the meter, and voila, you had time on the meter.

Soon, parking meters offered slots for pennies, nickels and dimes: six minutes for a penny, 30 minutes for a nickel, one hour for a dime.

Not surprisingly, when I parked by a parking meter for the first time in a long time not too long ago, I approached the parking meter with supreme confidence. I may have been strutting. Why not? It’s just a parking meter.

Like heck it was!

First, I was heading into a government building hoping for a meeting that would likely take several hours. Two things ruled out the use of change. First, I did not have enough on me and second, I did not want to leave the meeting to put more change in the meter.

But look! Do you see what I see? A slot for your bank’s ATM/credit card. You could bill the cost of the meter to your bank, and it would cover the cost for the length of time you were at the meter.

What a relief.

Not for long.

This parking meter disliked my bank’s ATM/credit card from the jump. That there was money in the account didn’t matter as far as this parking meter with its bad attitude was concerned.

Another impasse.

But wait! Look, right there on the parking meter, there’s a square-shaped ink blot that looks suspiciously like one of the 10 square inkblots that comprise the Rorschach test.

But no, not even close. The inkblot wanted my smartphone (so-called) camera to simply look at it. Didn’t have to take the blot’s picture. Just let the camera look. And so I did. I soon downloaded an application and, as a result, this parking meter with its holier-than-thou attitude, was allowed to access my bank account and pay for my time.

I don’t believe, for even a moment, that Holger George Thuesen, Gerald A. Hale, and Carlton “Carl” Cole Magee would want this experience inflicted on anyone.