Neighbor Alex, the keeper of the Gillibus, has seen a lot of things during his tenure as the Bernal Heights custodian for a large yellow former school bus, but until now, he has never seen anyone try to pass off a counterfeit Department of Parking and Traffic parking notice.
Neighbor Alex speculates “Santa brought somebody a color printer for Xmas.”
It’s been a dramatic week for streetparking in Bernal Heights, but the drama isn’t finished yet.
Over on Bocana, a parking note situation earlier in the week (d)evolved into a threaded blog-style argument between an angry Bernal neighbor and another Bernal neighbor who owns the parked vehicle in question.
Bernalwood has been in touch with the vehicle owner, who tells us:
I live on Wool just below Eugenia. I parked on Bocana just above Eugenia. I parked there on Sunday at around 11:00 a.m., after taking my dog for a run at a park. I returned home to find no parking within a one block radius of my house. I almost never have to park even as far as Bocana, but everything was all parked in. I thought my only problem was going to be remembering where I parked!
This was on my windshield on Tuesday morning. Bocana neighbors are hair trigger, I guess! The best part is the last sentence.
True, the comment about how “you don’t even live on this block” seems rather rich.
But that was not the end of the matter. Car Owner from Wool used some whitespace on the original note to respond in kind, writing:
Wow, seriously? I parked here from 11:30 am on Sunday through 8 am on Tuesday — not even 48 hours. On Sunday there were no spots near my house, so I parked here. These parking spots belong to everyone, even people who don’t live on the block. Please reserve your nastiness for people who are actually doing something wrong.
— Your neighbor on Wool Street
Oh, but that was not the end of the matter either.
Finding but a small patch of whitespace remaining at the very very bottom of the note, the Angry Bocanan added an angry counter-response:
Wool isn’t Bocana & so you don’t live on this block & you must be out of your meds, unless you can time travel, you were parked here on Saturday. Get your facts straight.
Snap! That’s the state of play in the Great Bocana Parking War of 2013.
Fellow Citizens of Bernalwood, what say ye to the plaintiff, The Angry Bocanan?
And what say ye to the defendant, The Car Owner from Wool?
Kick your feet up and open a fresh bag of Doritos, because the Bernalwood People’s Parking Court is now in session.
Tensions were running high on Manchester Street last week, thank to a Mitsubishi SUV that was parked for a long-term stay while taking up two (2!) street parking spaces.
The car was finally moved over the weekend, but not before Neighbor Chris reported that the natives had become restless:
Anyway, on Friday I saw a funny scene of a car that’d obviously been parked waaay too long on our block, and taking up 2 spaces as well, adding salt to the wounds of those circling the block looking for spaces: I can’t decide if we are just way too lenient over here on Manchester for a vehicle to acquire that much literature, or if this car had some special anti-towing force field that can only be neutralized with more notes.
Let’s zoom and enhance to get a closer look at the messages, shall we? On the passenger side of the vehicle, we had one (possibly) official warning and an angry note that ended with a wholly insincere expression of gratitude:
On the driver’s side, we had one confirmed angry note that clearly included exasperated underlining, a second likely angry-note candidate (folded), and a pink item on cardstock that could have been a business card solicitation from a handyman or house-cleaner:
Since the car is gone as you now read this, our hope is that the neighbors on Manchester are now free turn their attention to other literary pursuits.
UPDATE, 29 August: On behalf of the Citizens of Oregon, The Oregonian has issued an apology to all the Citizens of Bernalwood for the behavior of this vehicle. In return, Bernalwood would like to convey our most sincere air-kisses and good cheer to The Oregonian.
PHOTOS: Neighbor Chris
Neighbor Ron spotted this doozy of a parking note attached to a classic motorcycle on Eugenia and Wool this morning.
Three observations about the note itself: 1) The idea of reporting motorcycles for 72 hour parking may be true to the letter of the law, but not the spirit, since bikes take up relatively little urban space; 2) Impressive head-fake on the tone, which starts out friendly and complimentary but ends snippy and unmellow; and 3) Best parking note sign-off ever = Movesoonthanks!
PHOTOS: Neighbor Ron
Bernalwood 