What is better than knowing a bad parker got what they deserved? Especially when they think they haven’t done anything wrong. What goes around comes back around sooner than you think. Content edited for clarity.
What Happens When You Assume?
“My company is slowly returning to working in the office. Last Thursday I went into the office. I parked my car in space 23 and spent about 3 hours there. I left to go to lunch and someone had parked a great big pickup truck blocking spaces 20–23. I went into the office and recited the number over the PA system asking the owner to come to my office.
No one came. It is a private parking lot only for the use of people working for the company. It didn’t have a sticker on it indicating they were an employee. So I had the truck towed. As the tow truck was leaving dragging the wrongly parked truck a large guy came running from the park about half a block away screaming I couldn’t have his truck towed.
I nodded at the tow truck driver and he went away towing the truck. Then the guy told me he would have me fired and I would never work again because he was best friends with the owner.
Now, why can’t idiots understand that little old ladies in blue jeans and a t-shirt might own the company and the parking lot? I shrugged and went to lunch. I came back and went into my office from the hall, not through the waiting room. My clerk called and said there was a guy who wanted to file a complaint about an employee. He came in saw me and said, ‘shit’ and turned and walked out.”
That’s A Win
“I parked in a parking garage for work. I had become friends with the staff after fixing their computer one day. So, they helped a lot with this reoccurring issue that escalated. I had an assigned space near the elevator because I was an IT tech and sometimes had to drive to other offices in the area.
On a regular basis, I would get blocked in by a service company truck. I would call the number on the truck, they would radio the driver and they would move pretty quickly. But, the delay finally caught up to me. I got a new Boss who was a time-watching zealot! He complained about it taking me an extra 30 minutes anytime I had to drive to another office. I explained the problem to him and he complained to the garage manager. The garage manager complained to the service company manager. Did this change anything? Nope. So, it was time to take the heat up a notch.
The next time it happened my boss told me to only call the garage manager. So, I did. And this is what happened.
The garage crew brought up two-floor jacks and wheel dollies. They wheeled the truck in between two pillars. No way it could be driven out.
I got lucky and saw the guy come out of the elevator to see the truck. I got to hear him raise hell with his boss. ‘
Some @$#&!!! moved my truck between pillars,’ he was shouting. It cost his company $150 for the ticket from the garage, and $300 for the tow truck company to come and drag the truck out. My boss, the garage manager, and crew, and I spent the next hour laughing.
They didn’t block spaces anymore.”
The Last Word
“My car was almost completely blocked by a giant pickup at a Walmart. My sister had to block traffic and guide me out of the place, which took forever. When I was done, I parked in another space and wrote a blistering note, mentioning that my eighty-year-old mother had to stand in the rain as he had parked like an idiot and she couldn’t get in the car.
Meanwhile, my 80-year-old mother was walking around the lot, gathering shopping carts. She arranged them in an overlapping circle around the truck. It must have taken that driver a while to get in his truck and drive off.
I told this story at her wake. The priest loved it, and referred to it at her funeral.”
Well That Was Stupid
“When I was in high school, my girlfriend and I went to prom. We left early, and as we were heading to our car, a group pulled up, and just stopped their car, blocking mine. Four or five older kids piled out and went into the building. They weren’t in the middle of the lot, but it wasn’t a parking spot.
I took a crack at getting out, but my car made slight contact with their car, so I went inside to ask an adult to page the person to move his car.
The adult decided it qualified as an accident, and called the police. I don’t remember there being even a scratch on either car. But what could I do?
The police came, and the officer asked me a few basic questions. Then he looked in the other car and got a really funny look on his face. He opened the front door, took an open beer bottle from the front seat, and poured it out.
He put the car in neutral, pushed it out of the way, stared at the building, and growled, ‘You’re free to go.’
We didn’t hesitate to get out of there.”
Beware Of Mama Bear
“Long ago, back in high school, I drove a tiny Chevy Sprint. I was teased that I drove a tinker toy car with a lot of questions about ‘where the wind-up key was.’ Ha, ha. I had a car at 16, so who cared? It was summer and I had to make up a class so I drove to a sibling high school to make up the course. The student parking lot was tiny, so space was a premium. Again, the jokes that my car shouldn’t take up a whole space were made and laughed at. Whatever.
One day, however, I came out after class and had to jet home, as I had a deal with my mom to drive errands in exchange for the car. My mother was an extreme stickler for time and knew how long it should take me to get home. I didn’t want to walk in the summer heat, so I was dutiful.
I came out to find my car not where I left it. Confused, I searched the entire lot at a run, as I had stopped to chat with someone in the next class session. At the far corner, the corner with inset poles for the motorcycles, there was my tiny car. That’s when I recognized a friend-of-a-friend’s car where my car should have been. I raced back into the building, ran over a priest who remembered me from elementary school and busted into the guy’s classroom. Half the class was laughing until I started screaming. I yelled that my mom was timing me and would take NO excuse for tardiness and that whichever idiots moved my car better move it out so that I could get home— before my mother showed up. I was not going to take her wrath alone.
The class went silent. Then 5 guys bolted out the door to move my car. I had gone to 2 different catholic elementary schools and knew most of the people in two different high schools. My mom was infamous for being tiny and scary. People swore she was 10ft tall when she was angry. No. One. wanted her angry at them. Meanwhile, the priest I ran over went to his office and told my mom what happened. They apparently had a good chuckle over it, and when I got home and raced to explain, she just smiled.
The next morning, she drove me to class. It was SO humiliating for my 16 year old self. Then she asked me which boys touched my car. When I pointed the group out, one saw me pointing. Then he noticed my mom and freaked, yelling at everyone that she was there. The lot got quiet and the group scattered. My mom smiled, rather evilly, got back in the car, and drove home. Looking back, it was worthy of the 3 Stooges, in the guys’ klutzy escape from a tiny 5′1″ woman.”
