parking wars and the space stalker
March 19th, 2009 -- Posted in my crazy neighbors, san francisco, the city | 1 Comment »we recently got a car. bah. well, i should say, we were recently given a car by my parents. they got a new volvo, and we got one of the old ones (i swear, i’m living my sophomore year of high school all over again!). not that i don’t appreciate the gift, but having a car again drives me nuts. and i’m not going to lie - it takes away a little bit of my environmental superiority. we were car-less for over two years, and i would have happily continued on if it weren’t for the fact that my parents are now within driving distance, and having a car of our own makes seeing them so much easier and - hopefully - cheaper. so anyway.
fortunately our neighborhood has a somewhat decent amount of free street parking, but i have an insane neighbor that sometimes makes parking here a cross between all-out war, and an art form. first, i should say that when we moved to this apartment, i thought his house was condemned. some of the windows are boarded up, the drapes are all yellow and torn. it seriously looks like it could fall down. if it was in the country and not the city i’d be scared to walk by it alone.
the guy that owns it lives there with - from what i can tell - his 20-something daughter and his wife, and they each have a car. he must be retired because he doesn’t go to work. oh no. he’s around ALL. DAY. moving his cars around like he’s part of a crazed jigsaw puzzle. this behavior is obviously strange but his cars are also an enigma. his daughter has a brand new lexus (hello?! why buy a new car?! fix up the frikkin house!), and his other two cars are total junkers: one’s a rusted out, dilapidated toyota and the other one is an even more dilapidated honda (everything fits together here, if it weren’t for the lexus…).
since i mostly work from home, i’m around a lot, take the dogs out a lot, go in and out a lot, and i really think his main purpose in life is to navigate parking spots and get all three cars in the spots in front of his house. actually, i’m not SURE what the end goal is, because the cars don’t always end up in the same places. but the “game” he plays with them, without ceasing, all hours of the day, every day of the week is what’s so fascinating.
he will stalk out a spot like you wouldn’t believe. he usually manages to have two of his cars parked out front, and when he does, he’ll pull the third car up onto the driveway and just sit in it. i kid you not. sometimes the radio is on, sometimes he’s reading, sometimes he’s just sitting there - and sometimes he scares the bejeezus out of me when i walk by, see a parked car, and realize there’s someone IN it. though i’m starting to get used to it.
on the occasions when he’s managed to get a couple spots close to the house, but has to park the third car around the block or down the street (hey, we all have to sleep SOMETIME, i guess), you better believe when a spot opens up he goes running to wherever his car is, in an attempt to beat anyone to the spot. this is why it gives ryan and i great sadistic happiness when we’re able to co-opt one of his spots. and the consequences for him are great because street sweeping is only every other week and we NEVER (ok, rarely) drive the car. so you can kiss that spot goodbye for two weeks, sucker!
i also have a gypsy caravan that lives down the street, but that’s another post for another time. (anyone ever see the riches? yah, i imagine them to be kind of like that …)