Parked in Fuck Slope

If you’re brave stupid enough to keep wheels in the Slope, then you probably look forward to legal and religious holidays for more meaningful reasons than not working and spending time with loved ones: you don’t have to move your car.

I’ve set up a series of email reminders and phone alarms that alert me 15 minutes prior to the dreadful 1.5 hour window twice a week when the street sweeper cometh.  Here’s how the hell it plays out for any number of us during street cleaning time, between 11:30AM and 1:00PM:

11:15 – Stop whatever you’re doing and move car to opposite side of the street to secure a double-parked spot.  You’ll often find that this window comes when you’re doing what you consider to be the most important thing you’ll do all day.

11:15-11:30 – Turn on heat and sit in car doing any number of sensible 15 minute activities: bang out some Words With Friends, read a paragraph of War and Peace, etc. Do NOT abandon your vehicle until you are sure by at least two clocks that it’s exactly 11:30, or risk a $115 ticket. I learned the hard way. For the record, I also got a ticket when I forgot to move my car and only incurred a $45 ticket. Why do I even bother?

11:31 – Briefly ponder the fate of the car owner you just blocked with your double-parked car. But hey, we’re all doing it.

Two roads diverge. Here’s where you have options:

11:32 – 1:00 – On a responsible day, go home and work or bring laptop to coffee shop. Or if you want to take the edge off, mosey on down to Jackie’s 5^th Amendment and continue the conversation you had last night with some cadavers.  

Whatever the case, I always leave. Some of you sit in your cars for two hours reading the paper or stare motionless, presumably listening to NPR podcasts.  

And this is when I start to wonder what the hell we all do for a living here in Park Slope: work from home, student, retired, unemployed (by design or default)? I mean, how is it that we’re all able to even move our cars smack-in-the-middle-of-the-day? I smell a business opportunity to move people’s cars for them. Someone feel free to get on that one and I’ll be your first customer.

Oh, and don’t forget to call 311 and hang on the robot lady’s every word until that last all important one:
“Alternate side parking and parking meter rules are…”
“Suspended” – best day of your life
“In effect” -- might as well end it all now

Rinse and repeat.