So, the annoying thing about living downtown with a car (yes, I still have it...cold weather makes me reluctant to sell the thing and start walking everywhere...I'm easing into it...slowly) is the lack of parking options. I can park on the street overnight as long as it's not snowing. Or calling for snow. Or thinking of perhaps calling for snow. Or some guy named Bud who drives the plow isn't thinking evil and snowy thoughts.
So, I've been parking (I'll admit this) illegally for the past month. Behind a small strip of stores (Mac's, dry cleaners, coffee shop etc.) there's a back parking lot that is right next to my building. most of the spaces have signs indicating reserved parking for one business or another, but there are three or four spots not marked for any place in particular. There's never anyone in those spaces and I figure there's no harm...
So this has been working out for weeks without a hitch...until this morning...I went to my car...and there was a car parked crossways in front of me, completely blocking me in...I killed time, giving the a**hole that blocked me in some time to come move their Buick...so I cleaned every last snowflake off my car...warmed it up completely so that it was good and toasty in there...sat in it, reading my agenda notes for the day ahead...honked my horn...swore like a sailor...then decided to check out the car blocking me...
The Buick had a purple umbrella inside, and a "may court volunteer" parking sticker in the window. The May Court is a second-hand clothing store (with it's own parking spaces clearly marked, by the way).
I walked around to the front of the building, and the door was locked, but there was a throng of little old ladies with white hair wearing pink smocks. A gaggle one might say.
I knocked on the door, waiting for a reply, but given that their average age was about 108 they couldn't hear me until I pounded on the glass. At first, when they either thought I was there to spend money shopping, or there dropping off clothes, they were very happy to let me in...practically giving me coffee and a hand-knitted afghan to get warm)...but when I explained that my car was blocked in was bombarded about how my "car was parked there all last weekend, and it shouldn't be there at all, and don't do it again!!" from these ladies...I thought they were going to start beating me with canes and oversized cheap handbags...anyway, turns out "Mary" was the one who blocked me in.
She looked me up and down with her shifty little eyes, and told me to follow her into the back room. In the background echoed a chorus of "tsk tsks, and young people these days."
Mary quickly trapped me in the back room, shut the door, looked around for hidden cameras and said, "just ignore them...they're all grouches" and then told me how she was a nurse for 50 years
and she just retired on Saturday...
Mary probably got flogged after I left.
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