Hey Moron! Get That Crap Off My Street!

Hey moron!

Yeah, I'm talking to YOU.

Don't look around like you don't know who I'm talking to, you goofball.

Yeah, you, the selfish dumbass who's just dumped two plastic lawn chairs, or milk crates or orange cones or whatever crap you have lying around your garage, onto the street in front of your home, to try to save that parking space.

Oh.

It's OK, you say. Because you shoveled out that space all by your lil' ol' self!

Wow! Now it all makes sense to me, it's so transparently obvious now...

Ummm, no, not really.

Boo-F@cking-Hoo! Cry me a river you pansy!

Let me slap some sense into your thick skull.

First, you do not, I repeat DO NOT, own the street--no matter how much snow you shoveled off the pavement.

The streets are owned by everyone. You, me, all the taxpayers. We pay for the streets via gas taxes and city vehicle stickers we purchase every year.

Street parking is first come, first serve. No matter the season, no matter the conditions, no matter if you happen to have your junk out on the street. No exceptions.

It's like standing in line, or waiting your turn. It's something you should have learned in kindergarten. It's a societal tradition that is so deep, so ingrained, it trumps this so-called Chicago tradition of using trash to save your parking spot.

I don't care if Mayor Daley and most of the alderman give you a smile and a wink and look the other way. They're a bunch of lilly-livered, frontal lobe-challenged sissies as well.

So unless you're old or sick or feeble, you have no excuse for being so pathetic.

Second, you're from Chicago. You live in the city. You're not some milquetoast suburbanite, who pulls into their three car, heated garage every evening. You live in a city where you have to park on the street. You're tough and strong, dammit!

Chicagoans used to be a brawny, hard scrabble bunch. Remember? Chicago is the "city of the big shoulders", Carl Sandburg says. People with character, strength and resolve. Individuals with a strong backbone and not a limp wrist. NOT a city of the fainthearted and weak spirit who are bothered by a little bit of snow shoveling.

What the hell happened? When did you go soft Chicago?

Have you been reduced from the "city of the big shoulders," to the city of "crappy lawn furniture on snowy streets"?

Third, it's not neighborly to hog a parking spot and throw a bunch of your personal flotsam and jetsam onto the street. It's unsightly, it's ugly, it's littering, it's uncool.

What happened to chivalry? What happened to a sense of community in our neighborhoods and on our blocks? Are you that self-centered, boorish and immature that you're gonna try to save that parking space with a folding chair? C'mon now!

So listen up nitwit! Here's what you're going to do.

You're going to take all that crap you left on the street and put it back in your yard or garage or basement or into a dumpster where it belongs.

Next, you're gong to take your show shovel and dig out ANOTHER space. That's what good neighbors do. That's how kind and considerate neighbors behave. That's how Chicago should act.

Now that you've reclaimed your self respect and manhood, you should feel better about yourself. Stand tall, stick your chest out and walk like you're from that big city called Chicago.

Got it?!?

Good!

For the most up to date news, information, tips and advice on Chicago parking news, parking tickets and red light cameras, check out The Expired Meter.

Comments

[KoiPondering]

I was starting to think there were no other sane drivers/shovelers in chicago. Yes I am a transplant, from a city that gets just as much snow dumped on it, with worse street care. and I had never seen this pratice till I moved here. If you shovel it out, its your spot untill you drive out of it then its fair game. I have a garage... which I park in... and i STILL go out to the front and shovel off the street in front of my house.

[Einstein44]

It is an unwritten rule in Chicago during winter seasons....Mark your spot !

[reasonshouldrule]

Complainers about this idiotic practice are NOT outsiders. I lived on the north side of Chicago for years, and people putting junk in a space to "save" it for themselves were really irritating. I simply moved the junk out of the way--and if the owner had shown up, I would have probably thrown the stuff at them. Just because stupid people do this doesn't make it right.

[47th]

The people who complain about this practice are the same people who would never shovel out a space for themselves. It won't change. Only an out sider would complain about this.

[ppitstop]

Unfortunately, it IS the brawny, hard scrabble, boorish, immature Chicagoans whom I've had the misfortune of living next to who are practicing this misguided stakeout behavior, not the former suburban urban adventurers. It is the big-shouldered folk who believe they DO own the street, perhaps because they - and their grandfather and great grandfather - have lived there so long? Who knows. The one time I tried it 10 years ago, in a season when many of my neighbors were (and I'm a petite single woman shoveling my little self out), MY lawn chairs were quite unceremoniously tossed aside by some other a**holes.

I bought a Jeep. Now I don't have to dig myself out of anything. And I can just DRIVE OVER the damned lawn chairs.

[47th]

Take your "adventure" elsewhere.

[LadyJ]

I agree with you 100%. The posters who don't and say you aren't from Chicago are selfish idiots, that is not an argument for your case, it's totally irrelevant. What difference does it make if you've lived in Chicago your whole life, one year, or 25 years like me? It's a trashy move, period. If everyone cleared out one spot then they all would be clear, end of story. At this point, on my street in Logan Square there is plenty of room so I am still confounded as to why people continue to do this. After the first day all the spots were cleared anyway, and if they weren't, well, the car is probably still there buried in snow. The only time I can say I wouldn't be totally irritated by it is if there was someone who was ill, handicapped, or there was someone caring for them who needed to move the car, go get medication, or something to that nature. Last week I did pull a few chairs out of the street and later found that I had a flat tire. I am not sure if the two incidents were related, but I thought to myself it might just be karma, so even though I disagree with putting chairs and junk in the street, I am going to make my best effort to not let it get to me because there are always going to be people like ChicagoJO and 47th. Total class acts. Not.

[Ladyrantsalot]

Only a woosie would respect a claim to a parking space with plastic furniture and milk crates. One thing I've noticed in Chicago (I've lived here for 16 years), people who tend to claim parking spots after shoveling out their cars tend NOT to shovel the snow off their sidewalks. I hate them.

[47th]

Hate is a strong word.

[azhura]

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I rent a parking spot to avoid that drama. One winter of it and I decided that budgeting was less of a pain than fighting with my Loyola student neighbors.

[Ladyrantsalot]

East Rogers Park? I love that neighborhood (most of it, at least).

[thephenomenologist]

AMEN AMEN AMEN !! i don't care how long it's been going on or if the mayor says it's okay. it's wrong, and it is, frankly, illegal. you do not own the street. my expensive city sticker gives me the right to park there. if you want to own a private parking spot, then buy a goddamned garage.

here's what i did this year. i walked up and down the street during the day when everyone was at work, and threw all the junk, all of it it, smack dab in the middle of the street, effectively blocking it. you don't want me to park there? fine. i don't want you to drive there either. a couple days later after another snow storm, i did it again. and i did it a third time last week. the next time, if there is one, i'm going to load all the junk up in a pick up truck and dump it in front of the alderman's office.

if all disgruntled people did this, there would be a veritable revolution. so during the next snow storm, i call upon all of you to dump all the junk you find right into the middle of the street. DO IT FOR CHANGE !!

[47th]

I have lived all my life in Chicago, and people have always saved the spot they shoveled out. Any one who thinks differently is probably not originally from Chicago. I can't ever recall some one taking my saved spot either!

[ChicagoJo]

You think what you want, and I'll think what I want. But I KNOW if you park in the spot I shoveled out you will be minus some mirrors when you return to your car. Oh you don't like it? Well I don't like you taking my spot.

If you want mundane and generic, there are plenty of suburbs. You are welcome to them.

[The Parking Ticket Geek - Huffpost Blogger]

One more thing, we've created a pair of posters people can download, print out and tape to junk in the street to perhaps, convince your dimwit neighbors to remove their crap.

Check it out:

http://theexpiredmeter.com/?p=1736

I hope it catches on.

Viva la Revolucion!

[ChiProgressive]

Parking Ticket Geek,

I appreciate your service to fellow Chicagoans through your blogs, but this is one case where I do not agree.

I remember Mayor Daley warning people about putting stuff in their spaces a few years ago, but his pronouncements were sounded on deaf ears. He didn't have the cajones to follow through with his threat of throwing out our junk.

Myself and all of my neighbors have been doing this for as long as I can remember and we will continue to do so as long as we take the time and effort to dig out spots.

[ELRider]

Hey Parking Ticket Geek,
Thanks again for your help concerning a ticket involving a front plate that was displayed inside of a windshield after it was knocked off by a Revenue Dept. employee just hours before.

You should enjoy this "dibs" story:
For about 8 years I lived on Grace between Clifton & Clark, I shoveled my sidewalk, and despite having a garage when I had the time and the parking spaces were empty I would shovel the spaces on Grace in front of my house. Well on more than one occasion I would come home to find that one of my neighbors had put furniture out in front of my house in order to save a spot that I had dug out. Each time I took the furniture and threw it in a local dumpster and left signs that basically read, "Your Living Room Furniture is in the Dumpster at ........ You did not Shovel this Space, I Did. I Shoveled it for All of the Neighbors and Our Guests, Not for Your Furniture."

[1343]

This practice has been going on since snow and cars were invented. The problem is that the city -- yeah, the ones who hate car owners -- does not have a smart, effective way to clean the streets once the initial snow event is over. Instead of using the same system they have for cleaning the streets in the summertime -- alternative side parking -- they allow car owners to dig the snow out themselves. This means the snow develops ruts and gets iced over so people inevitably feel the need to "save" their space. We haven't had a real snow in days, but the side streets are not safe because of the "old" snow that is still on the ground.

The mayor, the aldermen and the streets & san staff clearly don't live on the side streets...or they have garages and driveways. Because if they gave it one clear and rational moment's thought, they would realize they need to CHANGE the way they clean the streets in the winter!

[LeftRight]

Good lord I'm glad I live in the suburbs! I at least have a driveway, though it's a pain when you've JUST finished shoveling the driveway and the plow comes by undoing all your hard work....

[RanceSpergl]

This columnist is obviously a newbie transplant and not a true Chicagoan. While the defense of the parking space is feral and irrational, everyone, all of us "get it" and understand why it occurs. Someone who says "Get over it" and "there are rules!" is obviously a suburbanite trying to push the river.

[The Parking Ticket Geek - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi Rance-

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I've lived in Chicago for over 20 years. And in my 20 years of street parking, I can safely say I've never used junk to save a parking space on a snow covered street.

That's because I'm not lazy, mentally or intellectually handicapped or a cry baby.

No self-respecting true Chicagoan should embrace this practice.

Very truly yours,

The Parking Ticket Geek

[thephenomenologist]

right on brother !

[jackson93]

I was born, raised, and still live in Chicago. This has been going on forever, but it is still stupid. If no one put any "space holders" in the street everyone would be able to find a parking space, and space holders wouldn't be necessary.

[SiberianRat]

AMEN! This has been going on for ages though--I remember it 20 years ago in pre-gentrification Bucktown and Wicker Park. Good for you, Geek, for speaking out!