Snow Etiquette

I think snowstorms bring out the best and the worst in people. Yesterday morning I took P$ and Abby for a walk in the beautiful snowy sunshine and found several of my neighbors working hard to unbury their cars. The pros had already cleared 95% of the sidewalks in our neighborhood—the complex must have a contract for that or something—and left just the sidewalk by our unit buried since there were a bunch of downed branches. P$, dressed in his adorable bear suit, attracted plenty of attention and was a great excuse to chat with people.



We saw other babies, met some other moms, talked about the weather. Pleasant, for sure, but I didn’t exactly meet any new BFFs. Anyway, the adventure wore P$ out, so while he napped Bill and I unburied the Jetta. It had been parked under a large tree that lost several big branches, one of which landed on the hood. The damage to our car was minor—only a couple of dents—but the car next to it suffered a broken tail lamp and rear window. We worked with the neighbors to clear away the branches, and loaned a woman our shovel so she could clear a path out her front door. (Bill said she was trying to shovel her way out with a cup.) I watched neighbors introduce themselves to each other and help each other push stuck cars out of their spaces. One guy spent three hours trying to get his blue work van out of his space, and it took four people to finally push it all the way out. The community spirit was so nice that I came back later to saw up the rest of the branches and shovel the rest of the sidewalk.

Apparently the “morning” neighborhood crew and “evening” neighborhood crew run in different circles. I came back out a few hours later to shovel out the Civic and was much less impressed. First, the person who shoveled out the car to the right had piled all that snow behind my car. Really dude? You couldn’t have moved that snow up to the median or something? Everyone else managed to, but you had to put it all behind my car? Asshole. And he left a milk crate with a sign saying “Reserved for unit XXX” in the space. While I was unburying the Civic a lot of snow accidentally ended up back in that space. Oops. Thankfully the person who shoveled out the car on the left side of the Civic was much more careful.

So I’m out there shoveling and I see two younger guys from the neighborhood scoping out the space that once held the blue work van. They’re shoveling it out, clearing a path into it. They see me watching them from two spaces down, and ask if anyone is using that space. A strange question, since the space is clearly empty and we don’t have assigned parking here. I reply that no, no one is currently using it, though I know which van came out of it earlier that day. I figure they have someone coming over that needs a place to park, but no one shows up. An hour later when I finally make my way back inside, what do I see? A “SORRY THIS SPACE IS RESERVED FOR UNIT XXX” SIGN IN THAT SPACE!!!! Seriously dude? You’re reserving somebody else’s parking space??? I can understanding reserving a space if you just spent hours shoveling it out. I can understand taking an empty parking space if you’ve already shoveled another one out and someone else parked in it. But reserving someone else’s space? Ridiculous.

I guess it’s just a free-for-all at this point. And now we’re supposed to get 3-6 more inches tomorrow. Thankfully I don’t really need to go anywhere for a while.