The meter where I was parked in downtown Chapel Hill ran out before I could run back. A $15 parking ticket taped to my windshield awaited me. The price was up -- it cost more than twice what it did the last time I got an expired-meter ticket in Chapel Hill more than 20 years ago when I was still a grad student.

The meter man got me fair and square. He was nearby when I parked and deposited three quarters. He must have checked my meter and his watch and returned to write his ticket the instant it expired because I only missed it by a few minutes. My tough luck.

I went to downtown Chapel Hill to deliver copies of my newspaper, Chatham County Line, on the UNC campus. It is a familiar drill, and I can normally make my deliveries -- to Davis Library, the Undergraduate Library, the Southern Collection at Wilson Library and finally the Park Library at the Journalism School -- with about 10 minutes to spare. And that includes chatting with the J-School librarian Barbara Semonche, a former colleague from The Durham Herald.

There was no chatting this time -- it was spring break and the J-School library was closed.

With a few extra minutes, I decided to stop by the Bruegger's on Franklin Street for some bagels. As I hoofed it over there, through an obstacle course of campus construction, my inner clock began ticking louder.

Finally I arrived -- to find the building vacant, and a hand-written sign in the door advising me it had closed in late February and to try the nearest Bruegger's, the one at Eastgate. A man sitting on a bench observing me offered some witty repartee, suggesting I rent the space. We had some laughs before he grew serious and asked me for money as I began to hurry back to my pickup truck.

I crossed Franklin and picked up the pace as I passed vacant storefronts -- what had been the Sun Glasses Hut and the GAP, in the heart of downtown Chapel Hill, now vacant for years. And the soon-to-be-vacant space of School Kids Records, festooned with going-out-of business signs, at the other end of the block.

When I got back to my truck and saw the bright yellow envelope on my windshield, I took it personally. The disappointment of failure in pushing my own envelope mixed with a sense of pique at the meter man for singling me out.

Upon reflection, I decided there is a certain symmetrical wholeness about it all -- dying businesses and stringent parking enforcement. As long as the Town of Chapel Hill is intent on getting every ounce of flesh it can out of anyone foolhardy enough to dawdle and let a meter expire, why would anyone voluntarily go to downtown? The empty storefronts offer mute testimony.

Downtown Chapel Hill does have its attractions. But it is more convenient to do business elsewhere. What Chapel Hill used to claim as its friendly, small-town personality can now be found in downtown Carrboro, where business is booming -- and parking is free.

For the Town of Chapel Hill, where its Downtown Commission wrings its hands over a once-charming downtown down at the heels and an evaporating business tax base, it's your tough luck.