True Tales #15 – Poor Parking Etiquette Is For The Birds

After dinner, for exercise and revenge, I walk around my neighborhood and other neighborhoods I happen to be in that evening or day and arrange for cars lacking current registration tabs (they are like taxes, if I pay them, I expect everyone to do the same), or from having too many parking tickets (the city of Seattle has an ordinance which allows cars with more than 3 tickets to be towed, or illegally parked cars (blocking driveways, for example) to be towed away.

I didn't originally plan to report these cars like some comrade party member, but after walking a friend to their car a block away and getting drenched, I decided enough was enough. I have civil rights, too--like parking in front of or near my residence. So every night, I look for cars which have expired plates, debris under the wheels or on the windshield, which have been parked in the same place for over two weeks, are blocking the sidewalk (a problem if you are in a wheelchair or mobility chair as I sometimes am), or are parked too close to the driveway of their neighbors.

Then I call Seattle Parking Enforcement at (206) 684-8763 and lovingly report these homeless, frequently unwashed vehicles. The city likes me to provide the color, make, model, license plate number, exact location, and how long the space-hogging vehicle has been parked (two weeks or longer is preferred; one week is okay).

After a few days, white tickets and orange stickers appear on windshields appear on windshields like poppies, telling inconsiderate vehicle owners to move their vehicles or be towed--and the city isn't kidding.

Yesterday, I observed two fine old (suitable for living in) vehicles getting towed to be recycled or sold at an auction, where bargain hunters can resell it to some schmuck who will probably get it towed for over-parking it.

I help create jobs for parking enforcement officers, attorneys, taxi companies and mass transit (if you don't have your car, you have to get around somehow, right?), tow truck operators, auctioneers, and used car dealers. I restore available neighborhood parking spaces so car owners like myself can park (and responsibly move out cars every other day). Tourists, employees, and visitors can now find a parking spot when patronizing our neighborhood businesses.

Now after reporting more than 52 abandoned vehicles, about four full city blocks, my friend and I can safely park in front of my home. Join me in patrolling our neighborhoods and liberating our parking spaces!

Keith Gormezano

"I never was respectable."
Benjamin Disraeli, former English Prime Minister
"No, no!"
No-No-Boys and Girls in U.S. Internment Camps during W.W.II.
"History will absolve me."
Fidel Castro
"Well-behaved women rarely make history."
Lauren Thatcher Ulrich