My Pet Peeve...

I have a laundry list of pet peeves...such as cupboard doors getting left open or drawers that aren't shut all the way, people who pull up to the drive-thru speaker and take 5 minutes to figure out what to order, checking voicemail just to find that the person hung up AFTER the beep without saying anything, making a trip to the store for one particular item and then finding that they're all out... And let's add my newest pet peeve to the list--pulling up to our house and having some random car parked right in front...and the rest of the street is completely empty! When you live downtown (or anywhere in town that is not a suburb), your driveway is usually fairly compact and often times it's in the alley. This type of arrangement doesn't allow for multiple cars to be parked in your driveway, so someone usually ends up in the street. And in our house, that someone is me. I have no problem parking on the street...my car hasn't been hit yet and personally, I enjoy walking up our front porch to get to the door. It's just so much more welcoming than our old place! With all the rain we've had lately, I've also found that parking out front is super convenient. The porch shields me from the sprinkles, then the big tree out front also acts as a canopy while I get in my car...no need for an umbrella until I get to work! Come sun or rain, though, it drives me up the wall when I pull up to our house and there's a car parked right in front...if you didn't know any better, you would think we actually had company at our house. And this doesn't happen every blue moon, but at least a couple times each week. When I lived in Aggieville, people parked anywhere they could because spaces are so limited. But not in our neighborhood! The only time I see cars parked near the house are on Saturday mornings during the Farmer's Market. Even then, the cars are still a good 1/2 block away...if not almost an entire block away. So why the heck are people parking in front of our house?! At first, I assumed they were guests of a neighbor...but wouldn't you park in front of the person's house you were going to? For whatever reason, there was a Suburban & truck + boat parked in front of our house one Saturday morning but they were staying with the people across the alley...where there was plenty of parking. Another time, I came home to find a car with out-of-county tags parked in front of our house, on a deserted street. And it stayed there for a day and a half... And in the meantime, we've just had a wide variety of cars parked in front of our house at all hours of the day and all days of the week. For a while, I wondered if the police weren't staking out the neighbors across the street and were switching up cars to be sneaky. But as often as the police are there for domestics, I'm sure there is no need for a stake out From the very beginning, I've written notes and left them on the car asking that they park where they're going. Because frankly--it's annoying when I'm moving stuff into the house, carrying groceries in, etc and I have to park down the street because some stranger has taken "my spot." During the first few weeks of doing this, Justin would just shake his head and remind me that the street is public property and people can park wherever they want. Then, just the other day Justin ran some errands with me and low-and-behold and there was a car in front of the house when we got back. All of a sudden, his attitude changed and he was ranting about how it's so rude of people to park in front of someone's house! And before I could do it, he told me to write a note to put on their car ;-) I'm sure that we'll eventually become known as the Note Nazis by our neighborhood...but I think it boils down to manners. If the street is empty and you're going to someone's house, then why not park there??? After 2 months of notewriting, I've decided that people are doing it for 1 of 2 reasons. One--(here's the conspiracy theorist in me coming out) they're part of an affair and are parking down the street so that no one gets caught or...Two--they're doing it just to annoy me! I'm thinking Number 2 is most likely...so from now on, I think I'll take Mitzy outside to empty her intestines right by their driver door--that'll teach them!