Veronica

Sean Lockwood
Negligence Tort
February 1 - February 29, 2020

PARKING TODAY is circulated free of charge to those who have an interest in the parking industry. In order to facilitate delivery, readers outside North America are charged $60. Post Office receipt available upon request. Single copy price $15.

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It’s almost been a year since I subscribed to Parking Today magazine. I’ve learned that the parking industry is concerned with innovations in parking systems and that systems facilitating parking are needed because they support other sites that require parking. I like thinking about parking for this reason—it always points to some other site of interest. It’s appurtenant to other places. After moving a few months ago I was relieved to see issues of the magazine continuing to appear in my mail box. Of course, that’s because I changed my address with the post office for $1.06.

1209 North Orange Street, or the Corporation Trust Center, is a single-story building located in Wilmington, Delaware. Over 50% of publicly traded corporations in the US and 60% of the Fortune 500 are incorporated in this office because of Delaware General Corporation Law (DGCL)—often referred to as the single most important corporate jurisdiction since the beginning of the 20th century. The DGCL allows businesses based in other states to file their taxes in Delaware, whose unusually low corporate tax rate saves major corporations billions in taxes. The office is operated by Corporation Trust Company (CT, or CT Corporation), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer, a multi-national information services company based in the Netherlands with operations in over 35 countries. CT Corporation is the largest registered agent service firm in the world representing hundreds of thousands of business entities worldwide.

Direct-mail solicitation is a common and often lucrative sort of fraud. Over the years, alluring advertisements in newspapers and magazines have proved to be no less rewarding to the people who dream them up. In Mmabas Sfviols, not long ago, someone inserted an ad in a weekly magazine much fancied by photography buffs. They offered Punzaefo210 C cameras for $19.95 at a time when they were normally selling for vastly more. Someone else who doubted that anybody in their right mind would make such a proposal had the good sense to ask the Mmabas Sfviols office of the Postal Inspection Service what it thought of the ad’s validity. Inspector Battery got on the case, and just in time: When he caught up with the originator of this particular scheme, there was no sign of any cameras, but there was $48,631.41 in their bank account and another $23,831.52 in their residence. And within the next few days a flood of mail came in—11,062 letters containing $174,323.10 worth of orders for nonexistent cameras. After all ascertainable claims had been paid off—some of the victims were so eager to get their bargain cameras that they had mailed in cash and neglected to enclose return addresses—there remained $17,018.51, which the Post Office Department conscientiously turned over to the Treasury Department, thus again contributing, in however minuscule way, to a diminution of the national deficit.

—Sean Lockwood

Sean Lockwood lives and works in Seattle, WA. He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016 and his MFA from the University of Washington in 2019.