It’s War

I’ve always been possessive. It’s just who I am. Once, when I was about three, I was at my grandmother’s house riding a little red tricycle. I had to go inside to eat but I was pretty nervous about leaving the tricycle outside with the other kids who might get on it. You should know that the tricycle was not mine. I hadn’t brought it from home. It was the trike that was always at my grandmother’s house, but I believed it was mine.

Once inside, the kitchen window was open and I could hear the wheels grinding in the gravel of the driveway. It was all I could do to not run out there and kick them off, but, instead, I crawled up on the step stool and yelled out the window “Hey you guys, off my bike!”

Later, someone painted my name in orange on the back of the trike and everyone knows, even now, that it’s mine.

It shouldn’t be so surprising to me that my blood starting boiling yesterday when I drove up into our carport. For over a year now Jud and I have had the same two parking spaces right outside our door. Our neighbor Stacey parks on the end. Jud parks next to her and then my car rounds out the spots. I have no idea what happens in the middle or on the end with the other people’s cars because I don’t need to know. They can park however they’d like, but spots number two and three are ours. Don’t get me wrong; we don’t have assigned parking. When we moved in, we just made sure to ask the landlord if anybody had dibs on any of the spots. He said that Stacey usually parked there by the dumpster but that the other spaces were available. So, we claimed our spots and no one had any problem with it.

Until, of course, some new people moved in. He’s a future DTSer and she’s a nurse. They live on the other side of Stacey (where there is street parking available in front of their door). They have one red car and one maroon car. They have a cat and sometimes we hear a dog barking from inside their place. We don’t really know them at all, but they are infuriating me. They’ve been parking in our spots.

I know. It shouldn’t be such a huge deal. Why can’t I let them just park their cars there? It’s not like they are assigned anyway. But there’s an unwritten rule. And that rule is not “first come first serve” it is “this spot has historically been mine and therefore, until you ask for it, it shall remain mine.” If they were to have a conversation with us about it and give some logical reason as to why they want the spot, I would acquiesce (shut up, yes I would. Maybe not with a happy heart or anything, but I would do it). It’s this passive aggressive stealing that’s driving me insane and I am not going to start a conversation with them about it. No way. They need to initiate it with us. They are the ones usurping our parking positions and they are doing it deliberately.

Yesterday, as I pulled into a different parking spot because the maroon one was in my place, I had visions of Fried Green Tomatoes in my head. Since I’m young and have just okay insurance, I contained myself. I may not be able to keep from containing one primordial yawp of “Hey you guys, outta my space!” or maybe I’ll just paint my name on the ground in a nice bright orange. Seemed to work well before.