Friday, December 16, 2011

Sign O' The Times

This is what my apartment complex looked like Wednesday morning:

What happened? Zombie apocolypse? Smallpox outbreak? Holiday vacation travel?
No, I'm afraid the situation is much, much more not that big of a deal; the parking lots are being resurfaced.
It's a large complex and they're doing it in sections over the course of a week. So while one area is being worked on, residents who live in that section can't park right in front of their homes. As yet another example of Why People In Other Countries Hate America, many of the residents have reacted to this slight, minor and short-term inconvenience by freaking out. Lots of them are very angry, acting like it's just the worst thing that's ever happened. Some people are parking in grass areas and others are cramming their cars into any available sliver of space, blocking each each other in while full spaces a little bit further away sit empty. And in spite of daily notices from the management office on where to park or not park and signage all over the place, many people just decided to do whatever the hell they wanted, as evidenced by this exchange right outside my window forst thing that morning:
"Ma'am, I'm sorry. You can't park here. This is where the men are working today."
"The note said I couldn't park here last night."
"Right. Because we need the area clear so the men can get started working first thing in the morning. It actually would have been fine if you had parked here last night, as long as the car was gone now. We thought it would be easier if people just parked their cars elsewhere the night before."
"Yeah, but you didn't say that. You said not to park here last night. So last night is over and now I want to park here. There's nothing that says we can't park here this morning, so that's what I'm going to do."
"Yes, there is. In addition to the flyers we put on your door, we posted signs saying so."
"No, you didn't."
"Ma'am, you're standing in front of one of them right now."

"..."
"..."
"No, you didn't."

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