In popular culture, there is sort of a trope that when the actual apocalyptic event is over, there is always a struggle among the survivors over the few remaining resources.
To some extent, the same is true after Snowpocalypseageddon here in Greater Boston. Everyone has already fought for the last loaf of bread or gallon of milk, so the next thing to fight over is parking spots. And boy, do people get medieval about those.
Admittedly, this is all something that I am still learning, because unlike Kelly (who grew up in Philly), I grew up in an environment in which neither snow nor parking spots were issues. There was always little of the former and plenty of the latter. Even when I was old enough to drive and was at my grandparents’ homes and the homes of the rest of my extended family in winter, there was never a shortage of places to park. So I was never really exposed to the Thunderdome contest that is parking in the city in winter. There are actually elaborate rules that are widely recognized. It was not until I moved to Cambridge that I was ever exposed to it. My first winter here was quite the wake-up call. But even after living here for six years, I am still learning all the tricks of the trade.
Even though space-savers are illegal here in Cambridge, it is a seriously uncool, rude, and wildly unneighborly thing to take a parking spot that someone else has spent a couple of hours digging out. It’s like you spent a couple of hours making a really nice dinner, and all of a sudden someone else swoops in and eats it all.
To make matters worse, some people manage to compound the issue by doing such a terrible job parking that they take up more than one dug-out space, or make it difficult for snowplows to get past your car, or both, like this genius who Kelly recorded for posterity. In essence, when you do these things, you are essentially telegraphing to everyone (at least all the locals) that you have no regard whatsoever for anyone else.
So don’t be surprised if those same people then take a similar attitude towards you. Here in Cambridge, we are civilized enough to just stare daggers at you when you walk out to your car. Of course, in other places, they take it a bit further.
-Geoff
The Books are Taking Over... 