change of heart: respect the chair

the other day i griped about all the people saving parking spots in our neighborhood, more specifically the chairs, cones and milkcrates used to save them. what is this, middle school? i thought. on that particular day of griping, the snow was almost gone and i thought  the need to save spaces was obnoxious and unnecessary. now that we have three million feet of snow, i am eating my words. we dug out our spot friday morning and then, yes, broke out a folding chair from the basement and…saved our spot.

it’s one of those tailgate-style chairs. canvas with cupholders on the arms. it sort of…broke, the second time we put it out. it’s a pretty sad sight, our chair. but hell, it’s better than what one of our neighbors put out: a rusty old charcoal barbeque with a sponge-top mop leaning on it. my favorite are the folding chairs. you know, the type your parents–or grandparents–put out for extra people at dinner. for like, the kids table at thanksgiving. a close second are wooden kitchen chairs. patio furniture trails just behind. hell, just this morning i saw four matching wooden chairs in a single spot (?!). with cushions tied on and everything. all that was missing was the dining room table. hard not to laugh when you see something like that. i felt like sitting down in one of them and ordering a coffee.

anyway, the street parking situation in our neighborhood is downright wild west by this point. ppl are parked diagonally, backwards, however they can fit. i’ve never seen anything like it. we’ve been trying to limit the number of times we drive because, despite our truly intimidating broken green canvas tailgating chair, we’re scared of losing our spot.

“if anyone, ANYONE! takes our spot,” holly said, her jeep wheels roaring, as we pulled out of our spot earlier this weekend, “I WILL RAM THEM WITH MY JEEP.”

“yeah babe,” i concurred. “ram them. jerks.”

 i hope it doesn’t get that far. but something tells me she’s not kidding.

 she actually exchanged some words with a guy on friday afternoon when she left to go pick up dinner supplies and then our friends up in federal hill. he was waiting to take our spot.

“don’t even think about it,” she told the guy, getting out of her car. “this is my spot.”

“well, where’ya going?” he said.

“i’m going to the store, and i’ll be right back!”

“well how long you gonna be?”

“it doesn’t matter how long i’m gonna be. this is my spot. you’re not parking here.”

“you’d better get a chair.”

 “oh i’ve got a chair right here.”

 and out came the chair. and the guy did the right thing (the smart thing) and left our spot alone.

 so yes, i’ve had a change of heart. respect the chair. respect the ridiculous amount of time it takes to dig your car out after three feet of snow. our neighbor, lori the teacher, put a tv tray out (she didn’t have anything else) and can you believe someone had the nerve to move it and park in her spot?? this isn’t two inches of snow we’re talking about. or even two feet. it’s dog eat dog out there, ppl. dog eat dog.

holly and i actually changed our gameplan should someone park in our spot. we will get out our shovels and, yup, you guessed it: shovel them in. respect the chair, ppl. respect the chair.

Advertisement

mice: 1, us: zero

oh fer cryin out LOUD can you just leave us ALONE?!!!

i really didn’t want to talk too much about this issue but i can’t hold back any longer:

the mice have taken over. they’re holding us hostage in our house. they’re demanding cheese and peanut butter and assorted crumbs and they’re not leaving until they get them.

ok, i’m over-dramatizing things. (they recently freed our hands but we’re still tied to our chairs.)  but it’s bad. we don’t understand where they’re coming from. or how they’re getting in. but it’s like, as soon as you kill one (yes. we kill them. if you have a problem with this, you should probably stop reading now), there’s five more. they don’t care who’s around or visiting or if you’re eating lunch, just reading a book, minding your own business. they scamper right on out onto our bamboo floors as if to say, “eff you. we’re baltimore mice. and even tho we don’t help pay your mortgage, we’re gonna hang around as long as we damn well please so you’d better get used to it and go to hell while you’re at it.”

there’s also a cat (or something big that definitely sounds like it has paws) in the wall and/or ceiling. and it crawls around, esp. at night when holly’s at class, and scares the sh*t outta me. i cannot take any more of this. i. am losing. my mind. [and pul-leeze don’t tell us to get a cat. yeah, we kind of don’t (read: really really don’t) like cats. yes, we’re gay and female in a long-term relationship and we have no cats. neither one of us has ever had a single cat. see? stereotypes were made to be broken. i also don’t own a single pair of boat shoes or chinos. so there.]

the whole situation makes me wonder how i ever EVER had hamsters as pets. they’re RODENTS. mice are rodents, TOO. as are *rats* [oh pls, don’t get me started on baltimore (and DC while we’re at it) and rats] man, i had a patient mother. mice are disgusting and, as i said earlier this weekend, if i could, i’d destroy every single mouse on the planet.

mice, if you’re reading, you’d better watch out. we’re coming for you and it’s gonna get ugly. this is war.