Like a good neighbor...

Here's a short break from all of the recent outdoor and awesomeness of Alaska blogging I've been doing (and not doing).

First of all, news. About 6 weeks ago, I bought a car, cheap. A 15 year old Chevy Blazer that has 140K miles, and after a few dollars paid to a friend mechanic I met, it runs pretty darn well all things considered. This car is very Dave Ramsey approved--paid cash, no loans, no liens, minimal insurance, runs fine, gets me from A to B. And the best part, Kelly Blue Book values it at just about twice what I paid.

In my apartment complex there are two types of parking spaces: covered and uncovered. Each apartment is assigned one covered parking spot as their very own In the above picture, the new car is in our spot. All of the uncovered spaces are up for grabs. Anyone can park in those. This was made very clear to us when we moved in. But this post is about the uncovered spaces.

The uncovered spaces are not very numerous. There are only four directly in front of our building. Other buildings have different amounts depending on the parking lot layout and what not. Straight out from my front door, across the street is the end of another building in the complex, and in front of the two doors/units on that end are two uncovered parking spaces.


Recently, I parked the Blazer in one of those two spaces for two days and two nights while we went to see Mt. McKinley (see next blog for pics!). When I came home, I found two very pleasant post-it notes on my car's driver's side window. See picture for what they said. 

I won't write verbatim what the notes say if you can't make out every word. But one of my friendly neighbors seems quite upset that I've parked in what s/he has deemed his/her own parking spot. Accompanying the two post-it notes (which are clearly written by two different people) was a handful of mulch quaintly piled on my car's hood, a small piece of trash secured under the driver's side wiper and a wet glob of paper towel or toilet paper or something stuck to the passenger door.

The pile of mulch and trash under the wiper I found very juvenile, like something a 12-year old would think of and have the gall to do. The nasty wet paper here is also extremely immature, but also very gross.

The second post-it note says that the apartment management has been notified and that I'll be towed if I don't quit parking in these two spots. This was obviously a lie and a bluff. If the apartment office wanted to communicate with or threaten to tow me, they certainly wouldn't communicate via a sticky note with bad hand writing. Secondly, if the office was going to tow me, this person wouldn't have needed to threaten me with towing. It would serve them better to remain quiet about the towing and let it happen so that justice is done unto me. Regrettably, it doesn't seem I'm dealing with the sharpest minds humanity has to offer.

Well, wouldn't you know, after driving around my the new car, the very next day as I returned home, the only parking spot available (truly) was one of these two forbidden spots. So, like a good neighbor, I parked there. The next morning I had another gift left on the car door. A glob of mud.

What's funny to me is that someone took the effort to procure this mud and get their hand dirty to put it on my car. Because I'm not intimidated or even angry at the mud, this makes me laugh, and laugh at the person who did this. How is it that an adult, a supposedly matured person, can bring him or herself to doing something so childish and moronic. They must think it is bothering me, but in fact I'm rather enjoying watching the show. However, I need to handle the situation.

We stroll down to the apartment office on Monday morning with our friendly post-it notes and ask the manager about the parking spaces policy. She assures us that uncovered spaces are up for grabs. Before we could tell her our story, she asks, "Do you have the green blazer?" Apparently, the perpetrator left a heated message on the office's answering machine complaining about the car. However, the manager assured us we were not in the wrong, and she would send out a notice about parking space regulations.

It's nice to have the office's backing; however, my experience in relating to these types of people (cowardly bullies) tells me that we need to have a face to face. Knowing from which apartment the dissatisfaction came, I walked up to the door one day after work and knocked.

I'm sorry, I can't tell you that there is a climactic end to this story with edge-of-your-seat drama. However, when the door was answered I introduced myself and said that I'm looking for the person who left a note on my car. The response I got was, "Uh, yeah, I think I was one of them." What kind of crap response is that? You think? The conversation was brief, but I made it clear that these parking spots are for anyone, and I live very close and will continue to park here when needed. I didn't appreciate the crap left on the car. She blamed her neighbor for the crap, and didn't really say much else.

The conversation ended like that. My guess is nothing else shall befall my car even if I continue to park in those spaces when needed, which I am doing. Once you confront someone and make it known that you know the childish and stupid things they are doing, they will be afraid to do anything else.

Frankly, I'm glad the story ends here. There was minimal frustration on my part. A better story (from your point of view) would mean more frustration or heartache on my end. I'm glad I had the courage to simply confront a minor problem before it escalated into potentially a greater one. A lesson, hopefully, I'll take with me through life from here on out.