Young Parking Nazis

Part I.

It is understandable that people who live by the beach are a little anal about parking; they don't want random beach-go-ers parking on their lawns or blocking their driveways. Besides, space is limited, and you are lucky if you have a driveway of sorts. We don't, so we manage to fit 2 cars in the little patch of grass just outside our front door.

The day we moved into our apartment by the beach, our neighbors across the way offered, "You can park on our side of the road because you don't have that much room on yours. That's what the last people did." We thanked him and thought, "How nice! We don't have to dangerously parallel park our cars in front of and behind the speed limit sign in the middle of our patch of grass, butting up to busy A1A."

So, I took him up on his offer...for 3 weeks...until I was hollered at (yes, hollered, while riding by on my bike). "I didn't mean you could park there ALL the time, I just meant while you were moving in! Move your car." Okay, my mistake, please be more specific...and it wouldn't hurt to start a conversation with a greeting like, "Hey" or "Hi" or "How's it going?"

Weeks later, we had some friends over for dinner, one of whom parked on the now forbidden lot. She was parked there for no more than 10 minutes when we went outside to move her car. Again, no greeting, just a "Who's car is this?!" I briefly explained and he made a grunt.

Part II.

A guest of our next-door neighbor parked in one of our two spots, so Dylan parked in a vacant spot in front of their house. The next morning, his car had a nasty-gram: "If you park here again, I will tow your car." Dylan wrote back, "If your guests park in my spot again, I'll tow their car." Naturally, a blond representative from next-door came over the following evening (with her cat, mind you) to bark at us for parking in front of her house the previous night.

From the minute I opened the door and greeted her, it was obvious that she had no intention of settling things cordially. Despite my efforts she didn't seem to understand why Dylan parked in that spot; and she convinced herself that she had every right to park on our lot, but we didn't have the right to park on hers...even though both are considered public, off-street parking areas. She made up some crap about calling the police and asking them about it, blah blah blah. I felt like I was listening to one of my 3rd graders arguing about nothing so I tuned out. Her finale involved her turning on her heel, swinging the blond mass over her shoulder and feeling vindicated (for pure stupidity??), while addressing her cat, "C'mon Cocoa!!! Let's go."

Thoughts:
What troubles me most about this ridiculousness (other than the fact that a cat was being used as a bodyguard) is the fact both of these people are young adults, probably in their mid-to-late 20s. The stress and anger derived from something as lame as a parking spot baffles me...especially when it was all based on miscommunication or faulty assumptions. Good Lord. I've always thought it was a bad idea to make enemies with your neighbors as you are supposed to look out for one another. Now it has become anything but pleasant in passing. Thanks, neighbor 1 and neighbor 2.

In the words of Ferris Bueller: "Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you'd have a diamond."