I had the same experience yesterday at SNA, and in fact was told to "come back tomorrow." I told them no way, but that I would let them get any issues taken care of first before dealing with my tickets. After 1.5 hours of standing there I told her enough, take 5 minutes and ticket me.

The main problem there is that they are trying to run this station on a Sunday afternoon/evening with only 2 agents at the counter. I've never met a business that was so hard to give money to.