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More Parking-Lot Shenanigans

May 14, 2009 12:58 AM

trangely enough, this story involves something that happened at my office, not at my apartment.

Mr. Vice and I have an office in an old three-story building. The ground floor has three offices--ours, our landlord's, and a CPA. The second and third floors are residential apartments. The building has a parking lot in the back, and we rent one of the spaces. The others belong to the landlord, the CPA, and some of the tenants in the apartments.

Mr. Vice and I arrived this morning to find a giant white van parked in our space. But here's the thing: it wasn't just parked in our space. No, it was parked horizontally across three spaces. This asshole took up three spaces with one car. And he did it directly in front of a sign that said "Private Property. Tenant Parking Only." Fucking unbelievable.

I was immediately on the warpath. I wanted Mr. Vice to park parallel to the van across those three spaces. The other cars in the parking lot and a building wall would have prevented the van from leaving. My plan was to leave a note saying that if this person wanted to leave, they should come see me. At least that way I'd get to confront this asshole.

But Mr. Vice did the sensible thing and parked in a spot that's usually empty. Damn him and his rationality.

Anyway, after some discussions, my landlord decided to call the police. I eventually got to work. A little later, I went and checked with our landlord to see what had happened. The window in his office opens out onto the parking lot, and I saw that the van was still there. Our landlord told me that the police had come and given the van a $5 ticket. The fine seemed somehow unsatisfactory given that I had already decided that several years hard labor would be the appropriate punishment. The fact that the van had Pennsylvania license plates, rendering the fine completely unenforceable, only made me angrier.

And then something glorious happened.

Just as we were sitting there talking about what an unbelievably inconsiderate thing this van had done, we saw that someone was opening the van as if to get something out of the back. I sprang into action.

I headed out and noticed that one of the residential tenants was on the scene now. One of the three spots the van had taken was hers. I confronted the guy who was getting stuff out of the van.

"Hi," I said.

"Hello," he responded.

"You know you're parked in my spot, right?"

"We're performers. We're performing next door," he said, as if that somehow made the whole thing ok.

"Yeah. You're actually taking up three different spaces. Spaces that clearly aren't yours."

The guy got pissed. He didn't apologize or acknowledge that he his unbelievably rude parking decision had now inconvenienced an entire office building. No, instead, he got pissed at me. Yeah, the guy that illegally parked his giant fucking van across three clearly marked private parking spots got pissed at me, the guy who, in a relatively polite manner, given the circumstances, had asked him to move his van.

"Move your van out of the private parking it's in."

The guy locked up the door and started walking away. He ignored me when I repeated my command that he move. I screamed at him to turn around and move his car. He said that he couldn't drive the van because he wasn't authorized on the insurance and scurried out of sight. Surprisingly enough, I didn't threaten him or curse.

The woman who lived in the building asked what I would do next. I said I had to go back into my office but told her that she should come get me if the guy came back. She said that she would because she wanted to see me scream at him some more.

A few minutes later, she came into our office and said the guy was back and that he was being an asshole and cursing at her for making him move the van. I ran outside and saw that he was in the van and trying to maneuver it out of the position it was in despite being surrounded by cars on three sides and a building on the fourth. The neighbor woman moved her car and let the van get out and I, in a display of remarkable restraint, just let him drive off down the alley. I didn't chase him down, even though I wanted to rip his head off his body and then pee in the socket.

Seriously, people: who comes into a small parking lot that is clearly marked private and positions his car so as to take up the maximum possible number of spaces? And then, when confronted by the rightful owners of those spots, what kind of person reacts incredulously, as if he is the hapless victim?

Some people are completely without worth. Fortunately, those people are easy to spot.


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