I find your position of “If I do it, it’d be a butthorn move. But, if someone else does it - eh, whatever, I don’t want to judge,” to be quite odd then.
I don’t know if this is intended in jest, but upthread I believe folk have suggested keying the car, or turning a hose on it.
I hope I am not the only one who finds it curious that folk who bemoan a lack of courtesy on one hand, so often seem to suggest property damage in response?
Here’s another hypo: Let’s say I merely cleared enough snow to get my car out. When I come back, for whatever reason the only spot available is one that someone completely cleared. Maybe someone is having a party or something. Am I prohibited from taking the cleared space?
The ONLY situation in which I have ANY sympathy for the space shovelers would be in a residential neighborhood where everyone parks in front of their house every day, and knows each other and their car. But even in that situation, I’d say you have an increased expectation that “your” space will remain available for you, but certainly no guarantee.
Not at all. He is in the perfect position to judge - and dictate - his own behavior, but enjoys no such preferential position WRT anyone else.
Yah, I do find it odd. 
I find it rude to cut in line at Disneyworld. But, hey man, you do what you think is right. 
Perhaps because you are not trying to understand it.
I think elbows has been perfectly clear and reasonable in this thread, and I agree with his position.
Nah, I get it, and just disagree. I have no problem evaluating whether or not people are assholes based on the same standards to which I hold myself.
Snow doesn’t damage the car and they have to shovel to leave. I lived where everybody had to shovel their spot and one certain person always took your normal spot if it was shoveled. The emphasis on always. Thus you got home tired and had to shovel again while your car sat in the road and you risked a ticket. They don’t get my sympathy, just enmity. Bastards!
Years ago when I lived further north, I had to dig my vehicle out of a parallel parking spot on the frigging STREET. One step more removed from the original poster’s situation. Nonetheless, after over an hour of digging, I was ready to leave. Now I knew there would be a decent chance somebody else would grab my space while I was gone, but I put a traffic cone in the spot with a sign that said: (paraphrasing here, I don’t remember exact words)
Yeah, I know you can move this and take the spot I shoveled out. Please, be a decent person, and don’t"’
Spot was still there hours later when I returned. My wife said she had watched two different cars stop, get out obviously intending to move the cone, read the sign, and drive off after pondering for a second.
If I’m not mistaken, you’re a Libertarian, and Libertarians are people who try to pretend that their view of the world is just for themselves and doesn’t affect other people. Plus, I was feeling bombastic.
Today was two days after our recent storm. I moved my first space saving garbage can of the season today. I hate them. 48 hours after the storm, fine. After that, the street is fair game.
I’m sorry. This may not be the day to post the weather from my zip code…
77°F
Current: Partly Cloudy
Wind: N at 6 mph
Humidity: 30%
No snow in sight.
Now you’re making even less sense. First of all, I’m a libertarian but not a Libertarian. Second, I don’t think my view of the world is just for libertarians. I have views about how to set up and run the government, and I have those views because I think it would benefit everyone in society.
Well I find it odd that you cause all this conflict in the name of ‘common courtesy’. When all it’s doing is clearly creating conflict, rage, and vitriol. This unwritten rule is clearly not adhered to by everyone, some seem to feel that as adults they can handle possibly losing ‘their’ spot, a risk they seem prepared to live with.
I happen to think it’s the right thing to do, when you’re in the grocery parking lot, and there’s a stray cart taking up a space, for you to grab it and return it to the store you’re walking up to anyway. So that’s what I do. It’s not hard, it frees the space for the next person, and I’m walking up to the store anyway. Does my behaviour obligate you to do the same? No. Does my calling it common or courteous, obligate you? No. Am I going to get all butthurt if you don’t do as I do? No, I’m not. I do what I do because of who I am. I am not projecting my behaviour onto you. If you walk right by it, I don’t think you an asshole or jerk, or a freeloader or anything else.
If you prefer ownership of your parking space then pay the premium and rent where such is available. Otherwise be an adult and accept that you have to take your chances, like everyone else does. Being an adult about things is singularly the most wheel greasing thing you can do for society.
Can we at least agree that the person who left the cart in the parking space is an asshole?
In other “common fucking courtesy in the snow” news:
Dear Idiots,
Enormous snowbanks make for narrow sidewalks. If you’re walking three abreast, and I’m already as far to the right as I can get, one of you fucking morons is gonna have to fall back. It’s not my rule, it’s fucking physics.
Thanks,
DianaG
DianeG, I feel your pain, we’re buried under snow currently, I couldn’t see a SUV, parked in front of my house, right now, the snowbanks are so high.
I suggest, next time, wait till you’re right upon them, then pretend to lose your balance, and shove one of them into the street, that’ll teach them.
Not to go off on a tangential and tired debate, but were these three women?
Actually it was a woman and two guys. Sorry to stop your tired tangent in it’s tracks.
For the record, I live in a region that gets the occasional big snowfall, where people save spaces with chairs and crates and traffic cones or whatever piece of garbage they find in the basement, and it drives me up a fucking wall. I fucking hate this. Yes, I dig out my spot when there’s a blizzard. Sometimes, I even dig out two or three spots if I’m feeling bored. Frankly, I don’t give a shit if somebody else parks in it when I go away. It’s not my spot. Most everybody eventually digs out their spot, so what the hell is wrong with sharing it? Every time I see goddamn chairs in the street–and some people take this to a ridiculous extent, putting them out there for an inch of snow–I want to take an axe and go Lizzie Borden on them. It’s selfish and it makes the neighborhood look like its filled with a bunch of territorial dickwads rather than a communal space.
Anyhow, luckily, my immediate neighbors don’t practice this asinine urban ritual, and if someone parks in my space after I get back, so the fuck what? I have no expectation of that space being reserved. Even if there’s no snow, I have no expectation of the space in front of my house being free of cars. Just because I took a shovel and ten minutes of my time doesn’t all of sudden bestow on me the rights to that space. So when I shovel two spaces, do I get to keep all those, too?
11 more centimeters of snow fell overnight, and it’s still snowing. 365,000 people live in my city and I’m confident none of them are getting into parking wars, raging at their neighbours, threatening to key or bury another’s car, or setting out chairs or garbage cans. Because the protocol here, is to be an adult about it, and not try to lay claim to that which is not ‘yours’.
Do I understand it’s annoying to clear a spot and not find it available on your return, I do. It’s also annoying to find myself in the slowest moving line at the grocery. But, being an adult seems to get me through. I’m not standing in the slow moving line, throwing a hissy fit about how unfair it is. No one would mistake that behaviour as anything but childish and immature.
I’m very sorry to those who feel my presentation of my position was unreasonable, or assholish. I tried to be civil and on topic and thought I was making a good point about which attitude really greased the wheels and which created conflict. Please understand, to someone who has enjoyed over 50yrs of snowy, snowy winters and nothing but peaceful interaction with the neighbours it is indeed confusing that anyone would prefer constant conflict and impotent rage as a regular outcome of an ‘unwritten’ protocol.
It’s been fun, but I gotta go shovel some snow now!
That’s when you stop, plant your feet shoulder width apart, get your centre of gravity low and put your shoulder out front. They can bounce off that all they want.
(I do that for idiots who try to run right into me when I’m walking on the right side of the sidewalk - time for them to learn which side of the sidewalk to walk on.)