A few weeks ago, I noticed an egregiously parked car in our school note and left a mildly censorious Post-it note on it-- and while this might have been mildly obnoxious behavior, there was no question that this car was poorly parked. . . ANYONE would agree that the parking job was awful and that this car encroached on BOTH parking spots on either side of the vehicle-- the car was OBJECTIVELY poorly parked; yesterday morning, my wife and I went to pick up the Mazda, which we left on Adelaide Avenue overnight after we took the train to Princeton to meet my brother-- we were several drinks over the limit so we did not drive it home and instead walked from the train station back home on Friday night-- and when we got the car on Saturday morning, we noticed a note tucked into the driver side door handle-- the note said:
2 Vehicles can fit here. Next time, pull closer to the driveway in front or behind you.
and while I understand the sentiment-- Catherine parked the car in the middle of a small strip of curb between two driveways-- and obviously the note-writer wanted to park right in front of their house-- but I don't think this parking event was noteworthy for several reasons:
1) Adelaide is a long street with plenty of parking;
2) if my wife had pulled the Mazda all the way up to the next driveway, there might have been enough room to squeeze another car behind it-- but why do this? why encroach on someone's driveway when there is plenty of parking on this street?
3) this is not an objectively poor parking job-- it's a subjective desire by someone lazy and inconvenienced by the fact that they could not park exactly where they wanted;
4) this note is boring and didactic--
if the offended party would have written something funny or clever . . . "Pull up or pull out, dick" would have sufficed-- then I might have empathized more with the put-out parker who had to walk eleven yards farther than normal . . . but because of the moralistic tone, I will seek that spot out the next time we drive to the edge of Highland Park and foray into New Brunswick and I will park exactly in the middle of that strip between the two driveways and perhaps I will keep this note and adorn it with dicks and place it on my windshield.
4 comments:
dave's solution is a mite aggressive, methinks
not a solution, a way of life, presented by the narrator of the cask of amontillado: I must not only punish but punish with impunity . . .
Professor G. Truck, a man whose name touts his pedantry, opines "this note is boring and didactic." Classic Dave.
Parking on the street sucks. I once had a neighbor park his car with his front bumper in direct contact with my rear bumper, so much so that the screws holding his front license plates made permanent dents in my car. Who does that? Who hits the car ahead of them, put it in park, turns it off, and gets out? At least have the decency to back up 6 inches to hide your guilt. So I left the guy a scathing note (I was 24 or 25 at the time and much less mellow than I am today) and the next time I saw him I was parking my car and he said something like "Be careful not to hit my car!" in an attempt to break my balls, so I replied "Don't worry, I'm not the asshole in the neighborhood who hits other people's cars, it's that piece of shit who drives the Buick that's always parked in front of your house." We never spoke again. And he never hit my car again.
i love your passive-aggressive-aggressive use of the delayed subject in that insult. brilliant stuff.
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