Wednesday, December 17, 2008

More mailbox adventures

You might remember my rant a while back about the parking habits of some of my neighbors around our development's mailbox center. It's not at all rare for someone to pull right up beside that thing, without really getting out of traffic, and also making it difficult for someone (me) who did the proper thing and parked in one of the visitor spaces right next to the mailboxes, to get back out. Well, today someone did something that had me longing for the good ole days where that was the most inane thing I had to deal with.

Let's start at the top, however. The eventual culprit pulled into the development right ahead of me as I came home from work. He slowed down almost to a stop going into the entrance, because there's been some recent digging done there and there's a bit of a ditch in the paving. (I'm almost positive that slowing down actually makes the impact worse, in this case). Then, predictably, he did the same at the speed bump a few yards further in. And after that, he preceded to inch his way along the road. Now, let's put this in perspective for you. The speed limit in my development is 10. And, while I don't always totally adhere to said speed limit and might be a bit annoyed by someone going exactly the limit, in order for me to rant about someone's slow driving, they have to be going noticably BELOW the limit. He was. So, I'm already a bit annoyed at this guy, and when he turns up like he's also headed to the mailboxes, I start thinking to myself "He's going to the mailboxes, and he's going to park right alongside them too."

I wish. There was this glimmer of hope when he continued on past the actual mailboxes, and then, shock and dismay. There are 4 parking spaces right beside the mailboxes. A car was parked in the one furthest from them. This guy stops his car across the front of the remaining 3, still squarely out in the street, and blocking my path to 3 perfectly good parking spaces, rather than parking in one of them. I was reduced to parking about half my car in the first parking space, and the other half in the "no parking" area between the spaces and the mailboxes. Let's just say I had some not so neighborly thoughts, but I bit my tongue, got my mail, and got out of there. It really boogles the mind though.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

You totally should have said something. This guy is obviously an obsessive rule follower and would have probably been embarassed, if you pointed out that he was blocking the parking spaces.

Scott said...

Your "obsessive rule-follower" was parked in the middle of the street. I'm pretty sure the slow driving was more about an old guy who was still freaked out by the icy conditions of this morning.

And trust me, I shouldn't have said anything. Maybe NOW I could say something to him, but it wouldn't have gone well in the moment.