Free Parking

Last evening as I left my house around 7:30 to go to the grocery store, I found the note pictured to the left under my wind shield wiper. If you can't quite make it out, it says:

YES!

THE RUMORS ARE TRUE

THE NEIGHBORS ON THIS BLOCK

DO NOT APPRECIATE

YOU USING OUR STREET

AS A PARKING LOT.

ESPECIALLY

WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR CAR HERE

ALL DAY LONG!

My car had been there about 3 and a half hours at this point, not all day. When I got home from work, there was less street parking available than usual, so I parked on the street behind my building instead of the street in front of it.

When I got back from the grocery store, there was plenty of parking available on in front of the building where I normally park, so I parked there. Not because I give a fuck about assholes who sit in their houses with driveways and garages and passive aggressively place notes on windshields. Just because it's much more convenient for me to park in front of my own building when I can. I mean, when I park behind it, it's not for fun. Though, now I guess I'll get a little vengeful satisfaction out of the times I do.

I've lived in this neighborhood for maybe 2 and a half years now and this is my first note. I'd say I park behind the building maybe 1 out of 10 times I park, simply depending on whether or not all the best spots are already taken. I don't have a parking lot, or driveway, or garage (unlike everyone who lives on the block in question) so short of circling the block all night until it's time to go to work again in the morning, I don't have much choice. I guess I could stop owning a car, but I like my car.

Granted, there is construction in the area, so sometimes construction workers park their trucks and then walk to work. Also, I live near a transit center, so some people might park in the area and ride the train downtown for work. I guess this invasion of commuters could be annoying to residents of the neighborhood, but it should be annoying to guys like me who have to park on the street. I simply can't understand why a guy who lives in a house, with a driveway and a garage, and street parking, would be annoyed. The commuters take up my spots. Not his. And they don't bug me, because they show up when I'm leaving for work, and leave when I get back. It's like a delicate ecosystem where the people who live here leave during the day and we get replaced by the people who work here until we get home at night. It's called sharing.

Look: this dude should be glad he lives in a place where people want to park. That's the give and take of living in a happening place. If you want to live somewhere worth living, you're gonna have to put up with other people. If not, you can move to the sticks and enjoy yourself in the middle of fucking nowhere where there's plenty of parking and nothing is ever open. You know where it's really hard to find street parking? MANHATTAN.

The note did make me curious though. I mean I'm not super well versed when it comes to parking laws, so maybe I was doing something wrong. There are no signs in the area, but who knows what the default rules are. If I was being an asshole, I wanted to knock it off. If I wasn't, I wanted to prove myself right, because I love being right, especially when it means someone else is being an asshole. So I looked up the laws.

Turns out I'm totally within my rights. If there are no signs or meters around you're not supposed to leave your car on the street in a residential area for more than 24 hours. Otherwise you're totally fine. Since I drive my car every day, it's never parked in one place for more than 24 hours. Usually when I leave town for a few days I leave my car at work. I think I've left it in front of the building for more than 24 hours once or twice but apparently the assholes live behind the building, not in front of it.

There are certain zones in the city where people have to apply for parking passes, providing the city with proof that they live in those areas. If this guy wants to be such a dick, he could apply for our neighborhood to be transformed into one of those zones. Only it still wouldn't solve his problem, because then I'd just prove I live here and get a pass and still park on his precious street from time to time. I checked the zones online, and my neighborhood isn't any kind of existing zone, so I don't need a pass. The zones are big areas and not street specific, so this guy's notion that I have to live on his street in order to park there is totally fictional, not to mention the fact that for all he knows, I could live there. Hell, I basically do.

I don't want to be one of those guys who starts talking about how he pays his taxes, but I do! I think it's okay to bring up paying taxes in this instance because I feel like the kind of cockface who would put this kind of sign on someone's car is probably one of those people obsessed with taxes. Doesn't part of those taxes go towards streets and sidewalks and parking enforcement? Aren't I partially paying taxes specifically so I can park on the street?

The thing that bugged me the most about the whole thing is I had no way to respond. As I browsed the grocery store, the note fresh on my mind, I tried to think of ways in which I could respond.

1.) I could go door to door and ask each person if they put that note on my car. This would be partially satisfying because I suspect this is the work of one crank and not representative of the entire street, the way the note pretends it is. Most of the people would have no idea what I'm talking about, they'd read the note, they'd agree that only a total ballsack would write something like that, and they'd probably even speculate which bitch on the street did it. Eventually I'd get to whoever was responsible and they'd probably act like they didn't know what I was talking about, all pissing their pants and stuff.

2.) I could just write down everyone's address and send a formal response. But, I thought about what I'd write in the formal response and everything I thought of sounded totally douche baggy. Half my responses were just as passive aggressive as the original note, and the other half were just obscenity laced rants. Still, it would kind of have the same benefit as the option above, which is that all the innocent neighbors who I suspect don't give a shit where anyone parks would be annoyed that someone in their midst would write a note like this. I wouldn't be there to see their reactions, though, and sending an anonymous letter would, again, be just as dumb as the original shithead.

3.) I could do nothing. Frustrating, but eventually I'd forget about the note and I wouldn't be stooping to the level of the child who wrote it in the first place. And by child I mean (probable) senior citizen.

4.) Or I could write about it here. I suddenly remembered I write in a blog and I haven't written in it since February and I hadn't had a good idea to write about recently, so it'd kill several birds with several stones. I could vent, finally post something, and pretend to respond to my enemy, all while avoiding any actual retaliation that my enemy might accidentally get some satisfaction out of.

Loyal readers might remember there was once a little red pickup truck parked outside my apartment building for at least a year. It eventually disappeared, but I was constantly amazed how long it lasted, given the fact that it had several towing warnings placed on it and survived some roadwork that drove all other vehicles away for a few days. It was impressive and I was mildly amused by it.

It's too bad whoever wrote this note is probably never mildly amused by anything like that. I can only speculate, but I assume they haven't been laid in a while and probably don't have much of a sense of humor. Maybe that's not fair, but I guess if you don't want people to think shit like that about you, then you shouldn't put notes on their cars that basically say, "I'm a total asshole."

Cutco salesmen put notes on your car to trick you into working for them. 24 Hour Fitness puts notes on your car to trick you into working out with them. This guy puts notes on your car to trick you into deeply hating him.

And it works.