Wednesday April 08, 2009 at 14:55
“I didn’t want to spend my two weeks off on tour, even though I love Humboldt Park [in Chicago], trying to get to the drugstore, digging my van out of the snow. It takes like an hour and a half to get all those things done, and then you come back, and then you’ve got to find a parking spot because some asshole stuck a chair in the spot that you just dug out. I just didn’t have that much free time.”
— Neko Case, interviewed by the A.V. Club
One time I spent three hours digging out a parking space on Chicago’s North Side. Left to run an errand—during which time it was still snowing—and came back to find that someone had brushed off the extra .0125” of snow and then staked their claim with a couple of lawn chairs. At least they were perfect for holding the rude note I left.
The guy ran up to me as I walked back across the street and said, “Hey, what’s the deal? I cleaned off that parking space.” I explained that I knew he hadn’t because I had done the bulk of the work. “Well if you wanted the space, you could’ve put a chair on it,” he replied. I said that I didn’t like doing that and that if he wanted to claim a spot it ought to be one that he dug out from the top all the way down.
Two hours later he buzzed my intercom to let me know that he had cleaned out another space and that the other space was now free for me if I wanted it.
The next day, Richard M. Daley, Mayor, announced that it was okay for everyone to block off spaces on the street with their chairs.
This has been another Great Moment in Civil Civics.
