Driving up to the store, and what do I see? A big shiny pickup truck neatly straddling two of the parking spaces closest to the entrance of the store (literally, right in front of the doors). Well, snottiness on that sort of scale has to met with snottiness of an even more authentic sort. Namely, a nice big goober, loogie, lunger, you pick your term.
Knowing that I was probably taking my life into my own hands, I made a quick scan of the scene and deposited a winner right on the hood. I usually make a point of aiming for the windshield, but hey, you do what you can. At least the truck was freshly waxed. By the time I got out of the store, it had dried to a satisfyingly bubble encrusted white splotch on the driver’s side of the hood.
Got a new vehicle? Want to take up a couple of spaces to avoid door dings and the like? No problem, park on the outskirts of the lot. Take up three spaces if you want. Suck down a couple of prime spots or illegally park in the handicapped spaces, and you get a free visit from Mister Lung Butter.
I hate this too. I drive a fairly compact car (Peugeot 306, for those in the know), and if I can fit it in next to the idiot taking up to spaces, I do.
Then, I open my door, slamming it into theirs. Hey, MINE’s got a protective strip at the outmost point of the door. If they’re lucky, they have one too. If not, learn how to park. They don’t paint the damn lines on the ground for nothing, you know.
Ooh! I hate those bastards too! Usually they’re in the crowded shopping centers, and their wack cars are parked diagonally across two parking areas. I have been SO tempted to take my keys and leave a nice long scratch along one of the doors (preferably on the side people cant really see), or take one of those paint markers and leave a nice little drawing. Unfortunately, guilt sets in for even thinking that. But, one day, it may happen…one day…
Hey, does anyone know if there is some sort of water-soluble (right term?) paint that we could use to make it look like a lot of damage was done to the car, but the next time it rained it would just wash right off? Not that I care about the jerk’s cars…just want to avoid those nasty fines and repainting fees.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the booger idea, it’s just not big enough somehow.
There’s at least two of these idiots in my apartment complex. Well, two that park near my apartment anyway. I always want to implement that broken toothpick in the lock idea someone posted a long time ago.
What really gets me though is that there are garages available here. These jerks can afford their Lexus or BMW, and obviously care about it getting damaged. But they won’t put out the money to rent a garage.
I once found a bunch of fake parking tickets at a novelty store. They looked authentic, but read something like:
“You are an idiot. You’ve parked across __ spaces in a handicap zone. Since I can’t actually fine you, I hope that you end up in a locked room with an angry and horny orangutan. Please be more considerate the next time you park.”
I like UncleBeer’s paintball idea, but be warned…those paint balls hit pretty hard, and you might dent the car in a way analagous to hail damage (hard to explain in the summertime).
My wife was once trying to find a spot at the mall and had her sister and her saintly grey-haired mother in the car. There were NO spots anywhere and they ultimately parked quite a hike from the doors. Right up front, there was a sassy, shiny, brand new sports car parked across two spaces (we call 'em diagonerds in our family). They snapped. I still can’t believe a nice little old lady like my mother-in-law would encourage her own daughters to smear Vaseline under someone’s car-door handles and on the windshield, and snap off toothpicks in the locks… :eek: …but that’s exactly what she did.
Diagonerds of the world, be warned! parking like that may insulate your car from accidental damage…but it INCREASES the likelihood of deliberate damage.
I can’t believe this diagonerd I saw this morning.
I park in an off-the-road dirt parking lot that is controlled by nobody. (It’s on a strip of land that wedged between an old 2-lane road and an interstate on-ramp.) There’s enough room for about 60 cars. There’s a “hump” that’s built up parallel to the old road that half the cars park perpendicular to, with their front wheels at the top of the hump. The rest park along the back side of the lot, as close to the fence (that separates us from the on-ramp), also perpendicular.
(BTW, theres a 50 ft. “break” in the hump so cars with no clearance can still get in. But by 8:00 enough people show up and want to park there that they effectively seal in those that park on the back side.)
Anyway, today there was just a single-space wide gap open in the front row to let cars in. I barely made it, because it was on the hump, but on a shallow part of it. I then found a place on the back row and parked.
Also back there was a woman that had just parked. Of all things, she parked majorly diagonal, taking 2 full car widths! If she was that concerned about her car, why is she parking in an off-the-road dirt lot that’s a 1/4-mile walk to the office buildings that we work in?
I didn’t say anything, because I’m more irked at the jerks that seal up the lot. If I have to leave before 3, there’s no way to get out.
As many of you know, if you have visited my Screwed by Parking Enforcement thread, parking in DC is tight- especially after hours. It doesn’t help that 99% of the parking spaces are parallel. There are many places where the signs are just far enough apart that two cars can fit without either one’s bumper sticking past (just an inch past the sign will get you a ticket).
Occasionally, somebody will park smack dab in the middle of the (two) spaces, leaving half a space in front and half a space behind. You can’t park him in, either. If you try, your car will be sticking out past the sign and you’ll wake up to a $50 ticket on your windshield.
The next time this happens, I predict that an unexpected low pressure system will suddenly develope in the vicinity of the insides of the tires of the offending vehicle.
When I was in college, there was one guy that had this really nice custom Pickup that he really enjoyed taking up 2-3 spaces with in the dorm parking lot. But he liked doing it in the BEST spots in the lot. As I actually had to work my way through school as a mechanic, and would come back to my dorm really tired, this really pissed me off. One day I was in a really foul mood and had to walk really far in the West Texas heat. So I spent a little bit of extra time to write up a little note saying “Nice Parking job. Do it again and I will break your F*cking windshield”. I put that under the windshield wiper, and went to get a beer.
The guy still parked that way after that… but in the far side of the lot. Problem solved.
I knew a guy who did that behind the barracks at FT Bragg. one of my friends and I fixed him. My friend would pull up on the drivers side, real close like and I would back my truck up on the other side, also real close. there would be an inch or less separating the vehicles and the guy was effectivly blocked in and we were between the white lines. then we went under the tree on the picnick table close by and head a beer or 12 till the guy came back, it was on a friday. dude was really p.o.ed and demanded that we move our trucks or he would call the MP (military police). we told him to call them, we were between the lines, he wasn’t. he was really not happy about the situation, but what could he do. after he promissed that he wouldn’t do it again (at least close to the barracks) we had a sober friend move one of the trucks so he could get out. nobody ever took more then 1 parking space again.
Oh, I forgot a wizard act of revenge I thought of, but have never gotten around to using. If it’s a hot day, and there’s a convenience store nearby, go buy yourself a quart of chocolate milk. Drive back to the diago-nerd’s cattywompus vehicle and take a swig of your chocolate milk, savoring the cool creamy chocolatiness and the nice thick mouth-feel that only carrageenan can provide. Then get out of your car, walk over to the diago-nerd’s car, and carefully pour the remainder of the chocolate milk all over his windshield, striving for a nice even coat.
If you’re lucky, before the diago-nerd returns to the scene of the crime, the choc milk will have enough time to achieve its windshield-related purpose in life, which is to bake in the sun, give up its moisture, and upholster the outside of the windshield in foul-smelling brown imitation Naugahyde.
It will take a LONG time for the diago-nerd to de-milk his windshield. Perhaps you’ll even make him miss a job interview. Wouldn’t that make it all worth while?
Boston is a town chronically short of parking space. Peopl get territorial about them, especially in the winter. You’d better not even THINK about moving that rickety chair that looks like it’s been left out for garbage – it’s really marking the spot someone has just shovelled the snow out of.
I once parked in a spot that was (unbeknownst to me) regarded as the private property of such a shoveller. (There was no chair in this one, so how was I to know?) They retaliated by letting the air out of TWO of my tires, so I could’t simply install my one spare and drive off.
So there’s your non-destructive method of protest – flatten the over-parker’s tires. Admittedly, it will keep him in two or more spaces LONGER, but he’ll definitely get the point.
My Dad always called them “Parking Hogs”. Ah, I can hear his voice now…
The thing I did more than once was to leave a note on the windshield saying, “Sorry about the scratch, but you were taking up two spaces!” Hopefully they will look frantically for a new scratch, and fuss and worry for a while. Hopefully.
I posted this in the pit…I’m so damn proud of myself, I will post it here too…
the other day I saw this ahole’s car, no handicapped tag, triple parked across three handicapped spots. I lost my st, called the towing company and had the car towed. This was at a mall.
I have a handicapped sister, so this strikes close to home for me. I used to work at a small retail store, which had only ONE handicapped space. I became the self-appointed Handicapped Space Monitor, (much to the dismay of my manager.) If I saw someone illegally parked in the space, I would get on the speakers and politely (but sternly) ask them to re-park their car. My manager was mortified (I could just see her thinking “don’t make waves!”) but she couldn’t actually forbid me from doing it. A few times customers got pissed off - but usually they just moved their cars, abashed. (That’ll teach 'em!) One woman flew off the handle and balled me out for asking her to move her car. She ranted that her teenage daughter had a sprained ankle, and her husband was a cop, yadda yadda yadda. But she had NO documentation that she could park in a handicapped space. Bitch. My assistant manager (who was very nice, and who had met my sister) defended me, telling this irate bitch that I had a handicapped sister. Didn’t make any difference to her, she just kept on self-righteously ranting. We didn’t budge, and never heard anything more about it.