All this over parking!?!?!

[protege]

"TO MY NEIGHBORS: If you are so desperate for money that you can't afford the $1.00 to buy a Sunday paper and feel the need to steal mine, please come and see me and I will gladly let you read the paper when I am done with it."

There are ways of dealing with that problem

For months, some idiot was taking my grandmother's newspaper. Since it usually came around 2-3am, we thought it was one of the morons from the coal mine up the road, simply because the shift changed around that time. Since I was up at that time on weekends, it was a simple matter of grabbing the paper as soon as it was delivered. Oddly enough, the weekday paper was *never* stolen.

[CurlyLocks]

That's true but of course you're probably one of the few people besides paper carriers or coal miners that's up at that time on weekends! Plus I have to say that writing that snarky note made me feel really good!

[protege]

Plus I have to say that writing that snarky note made me feel really good!

I was tempted to leave a note on the box, but since my car was usually parked not far away, and there are *plenty* of rednecks driving on that road...I was a bit worried that one of them would mess with it. Getting your windshield broken can really screw up your entire day. Been there, done that. I was going to slip a mousetrap or two in the box--but the slightest breeze would set them off!

[CurlyLocks]

I was tempted to leave a note on the box, but since my car was usually parked not far away, and there are *plenty* of rednecks driving on that road...I was a bit worried that one of them would mess with it. Getting your windshield broken can really screw up your entire day.

Ah, I see. Fortunately in my case the cars weren't parked nearby so there was no danger of that. I did just remember a parking trouble with neighbors incident that's more approrpriate to this thread though.

When I was 19 and still living at home I got my first car and parking was problematic. We had a garage and a very small driveway. If my Dad had parked his car in the garage every night I could have just parked in the driveway and there wouldn't have been too much of a problem. Frequently I left before he did in the morning, or he could have used my keys to move my car. Anyway, he decided I shouldn't park my car in the driveway at night but park it in the street. Now, since we lived on a street that was rather narrow and incredibly steep, parking on the street next to my house wasn't the greatest of options.

There was a street that intersected ours just below our neighbor's house and this street was relatively flat, so I decided to try parking there. There weren't any no parking signs or anything to that effect. Well, apparently the people who owned the house nearest to where I parked didn't like me parking in "their" spot so they left me a little "note" - you guessed it, dog crap on the windshield. Very mature, no?

[protege]

Now that just sucks.

Some of you might remember me talking about the nutjobs that live next door to my parents. They do leave notes on cars....parked along the public street. I know this, because my mother got one of the notes when we were moving cars around one night. At the time, my piano teacher had pulled her car in front of our house. Mom needed the van to get groceries, but the Tempo was in the way. She backed the Tempo out, and parked it in front of the goofballs' house. When she went to put the car away, she found a *nasty* note under the wiper. Needless to say, she was *pissed.* Since then, she tells people not to park there. I do it anyway, just to torque them off. After seeing them call the cops on another neighbor, and the cops saying that "as long as the car isn't on the grass, there's nothing you can do." Too many people are afraid to deal with those idiots. I can get away with it, simply because I refuse to play their games.

Even so, they choose to leave me alone. Maybe because they saw me working on one of my cars in the driveway--I had the Tercel in there and was giving it a good going over; checked all the fluids, adjusted the brakes, etc. Apparently, they're afraid of the "don't fuck with me" attitude I give off, or simply worried about what I might do to their car...

*And no, I wouldn't do that. To me, messing with someone's car is taking the easy way out...and since they have multiple security cameras, wouldn't be a good idea anyway.

[blas]

Hold the phone protege........

Your parent's neighbors have no qualms about leaving notes on random people's cars, yet they have a ton of surveillance cameras?

Oooooh I get it now. They are terrified of what will happen when they leave a note on the vehicle of the wrong person.......

I find that funny.

[protege]

Oooooh I get it now. They are terrified of what will happen when they leave a note on the vehicle of the wrong person...

I don't think it's so much for that reason...but simply because of their actions. They'll harass someone, and then play the "victim" card when that someone chooses to retaliate, hence the cameras. Shortly before the cameras (and assorted alarms) were installed, they complained about living in a "high-crime area." Uh, we have the *lowest* crime rate in the county! The reason they say the area is "high-crime" simply because people, mainly those they've harassed, have decided to retaliate. Their house has been egged (multiple times, in fact, one year it got hit twice in one night!), TP'ed, their cars have been trashed. Throw in the multiple graffiti incidents involving the white rock in their yard, and they've been hit alot. Oddly enough, everyone else doesn't have these problems...and they can't figure out why To quote Yoda, "Very unbalanced, they are!"

[ForestDragon]

There's an idiot at my school who takes up 3 spots with his Scion TC at my school. 3 SPOTS!!!!

I can top that one. Back before Hummers were available to the civilian populace, I saw a full-size pickup, fourwheel drive, extended cab, long box, everything you can imagine to make it roughly the size of a bus, parked in front of a supermarket. Apparently this cowboy Cadillac was this guy's baby because it was straddling no fewer than four, count 'em, FOUR parking spaces.
[Foghorn Leghorn] That boy's got more nerve than a bum tooth.[/Foghorn Leghorn]

[AZangel]

I lived in an apartment complex about five years ago that had assigned parking. I come home from work one night to find my space is occupied. Being as there was a towing service available, I call it in and hour later, I have my space back. Next morning I come down to get in my car to find a note saying that I'm a bad person and that karma will come to get me. Considering it was my space, I don't think the bad karma was mine to begin with.

[greensinestro]

I have to say, I once left a note on someone's windshield over parking. I was at college, sitting in my car with a book being I had a few minutes before my class. I looked up and saw the space in front of me, and this old man in an expensive Toyota Avalon, complete with a Ravines Country Club sticker, backing in to it. As I went back to my reading, I felt this bump and my car jostled a little. I got out and saw this old fart had backed into my front bumper. And on top of that, he proceeded to get out of his car, as if nothing happened! There I am, looking at my car, inches from this guy, and he's acting like he himself did not feel this jolt. I said to him, "Excuse me, but you just backed into my car." He completely ignored me, actually waving his hand in that "I'm ignoring you" gesture, and continued about his business. When I said to him, "Excuse me, asshole! You just hit my car!", that got his attention. He continued acting all nonchalant though, to where I said, "Hey! Get your fucking car off my car! You just hit my front bumper!" He yelled back, "Fine! I'm sorry, OK?" and he moved it up a little. There really was no damage on either car from this, but I sure as hell was not about to let this man's bumper touch mine for approximately two hours. (Yes, I could have moved my car, but chose not to).

After he moved his car up and left, I wrote him a nasty note, telling him that he needs to be more respectful of other people and pay attention to whose car he backs into. I further stated to him that the next time he does something like that, that person may not be so kind and decide you might be worth taking to court being you're displaying how rich you are with that Ravines sticker on it. Of course, before I left for my class, I moved my car to another area of the parking lot where he could not see it. You can't take any chances.

The person in your story though I think overreacted some, but I myself have had friends that have had that happen as well.

[JustAGirl]

Even though there was snow and ice unless she couldn't see the lines at all she could still try to park within the lines. If she couldn't see the lines at all then it is understandable that she would not be in the parking spot correctly.

I agree with leaving notes, as those who do not park within the lines need to realize that their sorry parking job is being noticed and people do have a problem with it.

Though, I think using foul language and threatening words should not be used. A nice polite note would suffice, unless that person has a reputation for acting like they do not need to follow the rules.

[greensinestro]

Though, I think using foul language and threatening words should not be used. A nice polite note would suffice, unless that person has a reputation for acting like they do not need to follow the rules.

I agree. In this case, I believed an exception needed to be made being nothing was phasing this guy. He had hit my car, and there I am worried about what kind of damage was caused. Plus, I also was concerned that if my car was damaged, he could say that I was the one who slammed into his car, as that happens in the world we live in. I tried to be polite, but it did not work.

[RogueThinker]

What Can You Do?

More than a year later, this still pisses me off. It was opening night for the 2nd Pirate of the Caribbean movie, so I went to the theatre after work to buy tickets to the late showing. It was really busy, so when I saw a massive SUV backing out of a space, I swung in and parked. As soon as I get out, this guy comes up behind me in his car, with his kids in the back seat, and yells at me that I "stole his space" and I needed to move my car.
Now, I didn't see this guy, probably due to the huge SUV, if he indeed was waiting for the space. So I apologized and told him that I was just running into buy tickets, so I'd be back in less than a minute if he wanted to wait. No, he continues yelling and swearing at me about stealing his space and how I should go park in the loading zone if I'm only going to be a minute. Since, to my knowledge, a loading zone is for picking up and dropping off, I repeat that I will be right back and speedwalk to get my tickets, since I feel bad that I may have unintentionally "stolen" his space and I want to defuse the situation.

I come back, true to my word, in maybe two minutes, only to find that this jerk has parked directly behind me, blocking me into the space and leaving his car in a traffic lane in the parking lot. Not only that, but he has LEFT HIS TWO KIDS IN THE BACK SEAT! With the parking brake on, or so they hand-signalled to me, obviously embarassed, from they car.

I went to get the manager to phone the tow company, but the car was gone when I came out. I was insanely pissed off at this jackass for blocking me in when I was trying to be nice, but even more so that he potentially exposed his kids to a car accident, since anyone scouting for a parking spot may have hit them!

Dammit! Now I'm pissed off again, because since he was only gone ten or fifteen minutes I couldn't do anything about it.

[uknz76]

I have only received one note, it read:

Sorry I hit your bike.

$500 worth of damage, and no insurance details. How sorry can you be to leave a note but no contact details.

I was only lucky that there were no other bikes next to mine, cos they would all have been knocked over as well.

Still pissed 5 years on

[wolfie]

There's an idiot at my school who takes up 3 spots with his Scion TC at my school.

I can top that one.

And I can top that - on a couple occasions, I parked across 9 spaces. In my defence, once was when the place was closed, the other time (different place) it was a nearly empty lot, both times I was at the "boonies" end of the lot, and there's no way you could cram a long wheelbase highway tractor with a 53 foot trailer into only 8 spaces ("bobtail" it takes up 2 end-to-end spaces or 4 crosswise).