stupid boston traditions
February 14th, 2006 by Lawrence David
it’s funny: christina and i were both thinking yesterday that we’d finally gotten used to boston. perhaps it’s the fact that the red sox are deep in hibernation, but nonetheless, we thought that spending the next several years here might not be so trying after all.
but then, following yesterday’s blizzard, we saw the folding chairs. it appears that many bostonians feel that having dug out their cars following a snow storm, the parking spot they’ve just cleared rightfully becomes theirs for at least the next several days. when said owner drives away, he or she usually deposits some piece of tasteless wooden furniture, like a dining room chair or a footstool, as a warning to would-be-parkers. woe to anyone foolish enough to remove these urban signs of “dibs” – your car is likely to get punished.
this whole practice is just baffling and really really frustrating. i grew up in and around new york city – a place where parking was even harder to come by than boston. nevertheless, i’ve never seen anyone resort to anything as infantile as blocking a shoveled-out parking spot with a refrigerator (one of christina’s co-workers saw one her the way to work this morning.) the idea that your personal hard-work somehow earns you a special reprieve from laws on public property is just wrong and infuriating. the street isn’t a playground – you can’t call dibs.
yet, as silly as this practice appeared, it had some very real consequences for us: we were prevented from doing some much-needed grocery shopping today, as by early this evening, every available parking spot had some piece of bric-a-crap in them. since i absolutely refused to lower myself to putting a piece of trash in my parking spot, we couldn’t leave – there’d be no parking when we got back.
[again - it makes absolutely no sense. if everyone who had a spot leaves furniture there when they drive away, parking becomes even harder to come by. it's like everyone choosing to cheat in the prisoner's dilemma. which, now that i think about it that way, does make sense to me.]
whew, felt good to have vented there. earlier, i was upset enough to write a letter to the cambridge city council (and in doing so, became one of those “letter-writers.” must be the cambridge water getting to me.)
damn bostonians. i always thought that your misguided passion for things like red footwear belied the fact that deep down, you were in fact reasonable people. but now, these folding chairs have proven to me that christina and i need to escape as soon as possible.
