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February 26, 2008
Pahkin' Muh Cah
I must say, this made me giggle a bit.
I'm sure it's far from a Boston-only phenomenon, but the whole "leave your lawn chair and/or garbage bin in a poorly shoveled out spot in order to save your parking spot from would be terrorists...I mean, fellow Massachusetts citizens" trend just makes me ashamed to come from the same state as Will Hunting.
I figured that living here, in the semi-suburbs, I would easily avoid such shenanigans. And yet, I live on no ordinary suburban street. I'm pretty sure half of the folks here once lived in Southie and never outgrew the tendency to leave an obnoxious, inanimate, easily movable object in the street lest some ruffian claim that spot not unlike the soldiers planting the flag at Iwo Jima.
In my 'hood, the parking rules are a bit weird: there's no overnight parking on the odd side of the street one year, then it switches the the even side the following year. Emergency parking rules apply to those same sides each year. This means that last year, we were forced, BY LAW, to park somewhere other than in front of our house. (We don't have driveway access; the couple on the first floor does.)
So, come the first snowstorm of last year, we walk three houses down and cross the street to shovel out. We were greeted by the owners of the house who asked us in a perfectly passive aggressive way to never do that again, even though their two cars were in their effin' driveway. I wanted to say, "Look, Joaquin Phoenix and Marky Mark might own the night, but you do not own the street!" Unfortunately, We Own The Night had not yet been theatrically released, and as such had to merely grumble and take out my frustrations by playing "God of War" on my PS2. I kept shouting at undead Gorgons, "Yea, I'll pahk where I want...watch me pahk my Blades of Chaos up your butt!"
We're looking to buy a house this year, the wife and I. Tops on her list? Things like "spacious rooms" and "durable walls" and "a roof". Me? I'm all about a big effin' driveway. I've parked on the streets of suburban Boston for long enough. A decade, nearly. Time to get me a little of that sexy driveway action I keep hearing about.
It's a lot sexier than a lawn chair, I'll tell ya that much.
Posted by Ryan McGee at February 26, 2008 11:03 PM
Comments
Oh, my former neighbors. I so don't miss them.
Good luck with the house hunt! A driveway was a big one on my list, too. A garage was even better. Good time to be in the market to buy, especially since you don't have to sell anything! Alas, had we held out a few years... hindsight is 20/20, as always.
Posted by: Liz at February 27, 2008 06:28 AM
i lived in sommerville (right by Poetah Sqaeh, near the Stah Mahket on Beacon St.) for a year and FEEL YOUR PAIN. imagine this though: there was a snow emergency (of course), i didn't know about these crazy odd/even side of the street rules because i'm from the South where we don't have such things. i ended up getting my car towed, had to pay the tow fee, the storage fee (b/c why bother getting the car if if there's no place to put it), and once i had shovelled it out, i had like 4-5 tickets on my windshield.
i moved back to the South. and you know what? you don't have to shovel humidity. SUCKERS!!!!!
Posted by: mri at February 27, 2008 09:47 AM
Oh, that's also a Chicago thing - in fact, it's technically illegal but Mayor Daly gave the practice his blessing which means it's really very legal, and about as disputed as it seems it is in Boston.
Posted by: Tink at February 27, 2008 07:07 PM
Somerville is AWESOME for that kind of thing. Especially my old street, which is a one-way, so if you can't immediately find a spot on the other side, you end up driving around the block 50 times. I still love it, though.
Posted by: Shannon at March 14, 2008 04:43 PM