Raise your hand if you remember the Trabant?  I see.  Well, maybe I’m the only one here who was smuggled over the Berlin Wall in a basket full of knockwurst and porn (mmmm, porn and sausage).  You’d think there would be more of us.  Anyway, the Trabant was like the only car you could get in communist East Germany.  Two cylinders.  Dope.  So dope, in fact, that when the wall came down, a significant number of East Germans just drove their Trabants up to it and left them there.  What does this have to do with my alley?  Not much, but it’s the closest thing to communism and parking I could think of.

So, here’s the deal.  I realize St. Pete seems to have its own set of parking restrictions - or a creative lack thereof.  Being able to park pointed against traffic is just the beginning.  It’s almost like asshole parking maneuvers are some form of artistic expression around here.  That dude with the monster truck (bumper nuts optional) who somehow manages to simultaneously park on the grass and block three handicapped spaces might as well put a sign out that says, “fuck yeah I parked like that!”

Somewhere not so far along the questionable parking spectrum are most of my neighbors, all of whom park in the alley next to my building.  Why?  Because they are lazy, and can’t be bothered to find street parking.  Is it against the law?  Probably.  Does it block a fire lane?  More or less.  Does it sound like the Indy 500 at 6am when that chick with the butterfly tramp stamp fires up her Neon with the sport exhaust?  Hell yeah it does.

This annoys me, but that kind of annoyance is a pretty standard feature of living in the world with other people.  I play video games.  I feel better.  Well, that’s my way of dealing with it, anyway.  You could deal with it like another of my neighbors who decided the other night to come out screaming.  His argument amounts to what I guess is kind of like a civic sour grapes.  I’m pretty sure he was pissed because he didn’t have the balls to park in the alley himself.  And well, the fact that everyone else does it must remind him of how much of a tool he is.  Actually, I think I’m giving the guy a little too much credit here.  I’m pretty sure he got frustrated when his meth lab broke down and decided to take it out on the neighbors.  After all, he kept screaming that the people parking in the alley were all communists.  Random, really.  You’d think that people on crank could at least keep up with world politics enough to have updated their paranoid conspiracies a little.  Oh well.

Generally speaking, if you’re ready to bypass normal conversation and yell at your neighbors about parking, it probably has more to do with your own self loathing than your automotive hang ups.  Maybe just stay inside and punch yourself in the nuts next time, okay, champ?  Besides, you’re not going to win when you’re trying to take away people’s right not to have to walk thirty yards out of their way.  The Big Macs might get cold, dude.