We’ve all done it. Left an enraged parking note for someone parked in a way we dislike. I did it to a car who parked in front of the fire hydrant to the side of my driveway because their car was overlapping my driveway a bit, making it hard to back out the driveway. But moments after I did it, I realized that after this car, there will be 20 more cars, and what’s the point. Not going to place 20 different notes every time on a different car parking in front of the hydrant. I have better use for my Post-Its.
This note, however, that a reader of ALBB received last week after parking on Church Street at Willow Street, was different. It included a threat to call the police, which depending on who you are, a call to the police could trigger a cascade of interventions. And for what.
In this case, I saw the note be placed on the vehicle. The guy who placed it was slender, wore a ski mask, and walked briskly down Church Street toward the mountain after he secured the note under the wiper blade.
I knew the driver of the car. I had just spoken to them an hour before. Before the note drop, they had driven by me and I didn’t recognize them. They park in the neighborhood regularly so that they can go to work on Main Street. On this day, when they parked and got out, I was headed out on my jog, and recognized them after they got out.
“I didn’t recognize you!” I shouted.
“It’s a new car. I just got it,” the driver beamed as they gathered their things and headed to work. “It’s beautiful!” I said.
When I returned from the jog, I saw the slender man placing the note. I went to Main Street to get my friend, just in case the note was bad.
My friend looked fearful and stood at attention. “Is the note telling me to move?” I didn’t know. We both went to look. “They say Willow Street is tough,” my friend reflected. “Seems like it is. I had the police called on me last year by a different house on Willow Street.”
“But you can park on the street. What is the problem? Did the police do anything to you? Did you move?” I asked.
“I don’t know what the problem was. But I did move after the police asked to see proof of my insurance. At that point, I have been through enough micro issues that I didn’t want anything to happen. So I moved.” I told my friend to park in front of my house every day if they wanted to.
On this day, the note said: “Hi - I almost hit your car today. Please stop parking so far from the curb. You can (will) get a ticket. In the future I will call. I drive down the street daily.”
Willow Street is consistent for its parking drama. Another house is known for calling the police on people who rented a house and parked their car on the street every day. But it was across the street from the rental house, and the across-the-street neighbor didn’t like that.
Several people who work on Main Street park on Willow Street. Once neighbors get annoyed, they pick up the phone and call. But it’s not like the neighbors need the parking. Most have driveways. It’s just a thing. Or they are attempting to hoard the street parking outside of their house for their visiting family. And call the police to hold their parking.
When I first moved to Willow Street, one of the first things a neighbor told me was how to call on another neighbor to complain and report them for messy yards. They said that in Beacon’s “point system,” if a house accumulates so many points, the people can be forced to move.
I had no interest in such a point system, and never fact checked it.
Beacon is a vengeful place. There are other stories of notes and even a gotcha-from-my-porch-camera-style color printed flyer taped to a car window on Willow Street. But Willow Street isn’t isolated. Other streets within the radius of Beacon have their own stories of parking annoyance. It would behoove people to not seek such vengeance on others, and to carry on with their days.
Turns out, the Parking Note Writer left a second note by the end of the day. An apology note. ALBB had published the first parking note when it happened to our Instagram Stories, knowing we couldn’t write the full article in the time we would like, but wanted to get the word out. Could have been a coincidence. The Parking Note Writer’s second note said: “Hello, I’m sorry. I had a difficult morning. Then I had that near miss.”
An improvement.
