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Monday, June 9, 2008

Concerned citizen

This weekend I found a note on my car. It was a slip of paper printed on a laser printer. It read as follows:

Thank you for taking up two parking spaces.

Had you been more thoughtful, you could have moved forward/backward to allow another vehicle to park.

So rather than helping to solve the problem, you have helped to make it more difficult. Please make an effort to do otherwise in the future.

At first I was shocked. I couldn't have taken up two spaces because I am actually very thoughtful and would never do that. Even though I was in a hurry to get somewhere, I got out and looked. Sure enough, there was two or three feet of curb behind my car but it seemed as though the car in front of me had found plenty of room in the "other parking spot". Besides, I have a tiny car. My RAV4 is shorter than pretty much every car on the road except a mini so another car would have taken up those extra feet. Would they leave a note on a SUV saying that their car is too large for the city and how dare they take up so much space?

I drove away kind of incensed. This person has made it their job to monitor their street (neighborhood? city?!) for rude parkers, printing out sheets of these notes and cutting them into "tickets" to issue. It's hard to imagine that this note would cause anyone to change their behavior. Dripping with condescension and judgment, it fails to even indicate "the problem" the note is trying to address, so a truly clueless person would only be baffled.

For a moment, I was tempted to write a response and leave it on my car. This is what I would have written:

Thank you for being such a diligent citizen.

Without you, surely our city would fall into chaos and ruin, overrun by the rude and stupid.

At the time that I parked, another car was parked in front of the neighboring driveway and taking up a few feet of curb so I squeezed my tiny car into the only space available.

3 comments:

Paul Hughes said...

Just be glad you didn't get one of these!

I was on that trip. Negative notes on cars are never okay.

Anonymous said...

Hahaha that was funny, it reminds me of a such note some one left on my VAN on Farifax street couple of years ago. It was in the exact size and format of a parking ticket which freaked me out big time! I don't remember the context exactly but it was a polite and funny quote wishing my car run out of gas in the middle of the free way because I've taken two car spots! lol.

Honestly I've never parked like that since then :)

Angelique Little said...

Lovely. Reminds me of a bosses' wife who told me that she hoped I got raped on the way home by an ex-con who would be released because I voted against the three strikes policy for non-violent offenses.