One awesome benefit of my horrible apartment building is the enclosed underground parking. It was pretty much the reason I said yes to the apartment on the spot, because 1) I am not good at parallel parking and 2) I don't think any human being should have to carry groceries around the block if you have the benefit of actually OWNING A CAR. Granted it just now occurred to me that I could drop off my groceries to whomever I was living with or whatever and then look for parking, but...well I wasn't that smart a few years ago. Also, side note, there are some people I know who are just weirdly proud of their parallel parking skills. I mean, it IS impressive, I guess, but how do you respond to that? "Crap, let's just valet, I suck at parallel parking." "Oh really? I'm awesome at it." ....and then they never offer to actually DO the parking for you, so you're just like, "hmmm, that's cool. I happen to be really good at playing Nintendo, in case you were wondering."
Anyway, I came home from work one night to find the driveway of my garage entrance blocked by a giant Jeep. What's odd is that there's a parking space in the driveway itself, so Mr. Jeep could have easily parked there. But no, Jeep guy probably saw this giant driveway and was like, SCORE! GIANT DRIVEWAY! I'M SURE NO ONE NEEDS TO GET IN OR OUT OF THIS BUILDING. PARK. So because I always overestimate my car's ability to shrink down to toy car size, I thought there might be a chance I could scooch around it, so I clicked my clicker to open the garage. Unfortunately, the optical illusion this giant Jeep created made me fail to realize that the Jeep was actually parked WILDLY CLOSE to the garage gate, which opens out. So it smashed into the front of the guy's car and just stopped there. And then it wouldn't close back down. Oooops. I didn't know what to do. And it wasn't REALLY my fault, because the Jeep was fully blocking the garage. So...I drove away. Circled the block. And waited down the street. Like a SPY.
I guess in hindsight I could have just left and gone somewhere else until the situation all shook out, but I was really sort of curious as to what would happen, and also, I really wanted to watch The Simpsons in my apartment, and I figured this situation would resolve itself before the show was over. Finally, the person who lives in the weird house next door comes out and inspects her Jeep. There wasn't any damage (and before you judge me, I DID sort of check to make sure that was the case before I ran away), but she was all, WTF??? As if she was woefully wronged, even though, might I add, RIGHT NEXT DOOR SHE HAS HER OWN PRIVATE DRIVEWAY THAT IS EMPTY. So she moved her car into the street (??) and she and her boyfriend start inspecting the non-existent damage all seriously, as if someone came by and slashed their tires and disappeared. But come on, Jeep lady, did you not suspect this could happen? It's like parking your car in the middle of a paintball field and being all pissed when you get paint on it. (It's JUST like that familiar situation). At the very least it's a dick move to block the entire driveway. So then my neighbor who lives in my building pulls up into the driveway, and the gate is totally still stuck, and he can't get in. I pull up right behind him, get out of my car, and am like, "What's the problem here?". He's like, some jackass broke the gate. I'm like, "man, that's the worst! Who would do something like that??" We silently wonder about what kind of idiot would drive away, leaving a broken gate.
Then, another neighbor pulls up. And another. And then someone IN the garage tries to get out. She's trapped inside. We're all in a little line, out of our cars, examining the gate, really managing the hell out of the situation, as if we can actually pinpoint how to fix a large, mechanical gate. I really am shocked at how easily I'm getting away with this. Because I always feign authority on these type of things, I say, "Hmmm, it looks to me like it just needs to be reset." Everyone nods and agrees. Someone says, "How do you reset it?" They all look to me. Crap. Too much responsibility in my direction. I diffuse it. "Hmmm, well, where I used to live, that's how you fix the gate, this may not be the case. Let's call the manager." So then the manager comes, and in face DOES reset it, and everyone gets in/out. They pat me on the back for really taking care of things. For one solitary instant, I was the apartment building hero. Until I accidentally blocked part of a car with my car in the parking lot, and got my tires slashed for my trouble. That was a sobering reminder of what happens when you live with possible drug dealers.
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4 comments:
Omg great blog!! That is always my fear when jerks park in the driveway in front of my gate!
So not your fault atall. Frankly, you were kind to the Jeep owner, as far as I am concerned. After banging the garage gate into the Jeep (repeatedly if I could manage it), I would have been on the phone to the local police insisting that they come by immediately and tow the retarded bitch's car, praying all the while that the spawn of stupidity didn't return in time to move her car before the tow truck hauled it away.
By the way, you're not the first, last or only person that this has happened to and it doesn't only happen in apartment buildings. I recall when I was in high school up in La Crescenta, CA, I lived with my Grandmother, Aunt and Uncle (so that I could go to the fancy, safe and smart high school in the district as opposed to the one closer to my parents' home, which at the time was "educating" the future prostitutes, drug dealers, rapists, murderers, and retarded bitches who can't park or drive today) in their big house on Orange Aveune, which was unfortunately (for convenience and annoyance reasons but fortunately for property values) across the street from Monte Vista Elementary School. An elementary school where every retarded bitch housewife insisted on parking their minivans and walking their little brats to their class rooms as opposed to just dropping their rugrats off in front of the building or down the side of the other street in the designated drop-off/pick-up zone.
One day during my senior year of high school, as my carpool attempted to drop me off, I say attempted because there was a retarded bitch's minivan parked halfway into our driveway thusly hindering my friend's mother from pulling into my driveway to drop me off. Why, you ask, would someone be so stupid, thoughtless and inconsiderate as to park and block half of your driveway? Well because there was another retarded bitch's fat minivan sitting in the parking space on the street that she apparently wanted. Now mind you, although the other Bitch's minivan fit in that spot (with room for half of another car behind it) there is a fire hydrant located right at the sidewalk in the middle of that spot and although the curb was never painted red, one still cannot park her minivan in front of it, even if she has to walk her future beneficiary of nepotism across the street and hold its hand into its classroom.
Well needless to say, Ricky was very upset at this but knew that no matter how upset he was, his Uncle (whom happened to be home that day) would be ten times more upset about it, which of course immediately transformed some of Ricky's own anger into joy as he gleefully ran into his Uncle's room "hopping mad" to inform him of the crime at the end of our driveway. Much to Ricky's delight, his Uncle lept out of his chair to survey the situation. Taking note of the license plate, Uncle told Ricky to call the Sherrif's department just down the road and have them come tow the offending vehicle right away while my Uncle drove his own car down the driveway and boxed in the retarded bitch so that she couldn't leave until either the minivan in front of her left or the sherrifs arrived to ticket and tow her away.
The retarded bitch returned to her vehicle shortly thereafter and found herself without any way of escape. After several attempts, she literally sat in her car, waiting for the other minivan's owner to come and drive it away, frustrated and upset. Well, the other minvian's owner didn't come but who did was the sheriff, whom she promptly ran out to and complained about the cars that had blocked her in. Oh the joy when the officer informed her that she was parked illegally on two fronts, for blocking the driveway and for parking in front of a fire hydrant and cited her on the spot while calling for a tow truck to remove the other vehicle, which she had to sit and wait for.
Now that's the really sad part of this story, in our zeal to seek justice against this retarded bitch, we failed to recognize that the white minivan parked in front of her was not another housewife picking up her little brat but our not-quite-elderly neighbors' across the street (technically, we lived across from that house, which was adjacent to the parking lot of the school) who had apparently parked their minivan there because they had guests show up in an RV and, since their minivan does not fit in their garage next to their other car and all the soccer moms in the neighborhood had lined thier minivans and SUVs along the street, there was no place other than our neighbors' driveway to put their family/friends' RV. Now, it's still our neighbors' own fault for parking in front of a fire hydrant (which, by the way, everyone in the neigborhood knows doesn't really work and since the curb is not red and it's sort of hidden by the bushes and trees on that side of the driveway, everyone - including us - parks there on occasion without incident or citation) but it was still kind of a bummer when the neighbors came knocking to see if we knew anything about what might have happened to their white minivan, which of course we had absolutely no clue about whatsoever but politely invited them in to call the police and report it stolen if they hadn't already done so.
Ricky, that was amazing. Incidentally, my mom had a years-long fight with our neighbors over a similar situation--them parking across the street, exactly across from our driveway, so it made it impossible to back out the car on the narrow street. They didn't understand why this was a problem (or maybe they did, but were evil).
I am the next door Jeep owner, and I am, as we speak, calling the police to report this incident. I will be using this blog as evidence against you.
This would be a more effective scare tactic if I logged in annonymously, but I don't actually want to scare you ;)
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