简单慢速英语阅读：The New "No Parking" Sign

    It was noon on Wednesday. "That's not fair. That's not right," Mel told Irene. He parked his car every night. He parked his car on the street. "Look. The pole is in fresh cement¹," he said. "The cement is still wet." It was a new parking sign. It said, "No Parking 9:30AM-11AM Wednesday." The old parking sign was different. The old sign had said, "No Parking 1PM-2:30PM Wednesday." "My neighbors and I park on this street," said Mel. "We know that we can't park here from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. But early this morning they changed the sign. Did they warn us? Did they say anything to us? No, but they told parking enforcement²! Parking enforcement wrote 25 tickets this morning! Twenty-five tickets! I counted them! Each ticket is $48. We were all going to move our cars before 1:00. Now it's too late. Why didn't they warn us?"

1 cement   

n.水泥；胶结材料；vt.粘结；巩固

参考例句：

• We need 100 tons of cement at most for this project.这项工程满打满算有一百吨水泥就足够了。
• Let's cement the parts together.咱们来把这些部件粘接在一起吧。

2 enforcement   

n.实施, 执行

参考例句：

• MPs called for tougher enforcement of the existing laws on drugs. 下院议员呼籲加强现行毒品法律的执行力度。
• The court is ineffective because it lacks the necessary enforcement machinery. 法院效率低是因为缺乏必要的执行机制。