I, too, have had recurring issues with the neighbors parking in front of my house. Plain and simple fact is that it's illegal to park in front of my house as it's a one-way street and the direction of the one-way means that cars must park on the opposing side of the street. At the time this was happening most frequently, none of the neighbors on the opposite side of the street had vehicles, so it was always possible to safely and legally park properly. However, the bastards always insisted on not following the law. For a stretch of time, I resorted to leaving my trash bin permanently on the street in front.
For the most part, the problem has been resolved (now 6 years later) except for when the neighbors have company over. There are extra spots around the corner that the city built specifically for this purpose, yet no one uses them. It is indeed frustrating.
I am surprised you have not come to understand the French psyche.
Here's how it works:
If there are two ways of doing something, with exactly the same outcome for your neighbour, the French way is to always chose the way that will **** over someone else. Always.
I remember way back when I was a teenager, which was the last time I fretted about street parking, and it was some oaf had parked a crusty old Cadillac alongside the house where my dad had used to park his service van. And it sat there for several weeks, and it would come & go seemingly as my dad had gone, and then finally I had it and left a note on its windshield, which of course my dad handed back to me the next morning. Because his service vehicle had gotten broken into one time too many, so he bought this land yacht with the largest trunk in existence, where he stowed all of his service tools, with nobody the wiser not even me! But the lesson being that nobody, in fact, owns or controls the road: it is "public property," as it were, and if somebody chooses to use the public property adjacent to your house, which you thought was your public property, well no it isn't, it belongs to "the public" which includes all sorts of people who are different people than who you are. Which becomes an important lesson for any teenager to learn, because on another day while walking the dog on the public sidewalk and it peed against the public light post, which somehow disturbed the neighbor who lived nearest to the incident and thought they owned and controlled that sidewalk and light post raised an objection, but were promptly flummoxed to find out that not only does any random person have claim to use the public property, they can even let their dog wet on it, pretty much at will. You know, and if you want to call the cops, sure thing I'll hang around (but of course it didn't work out that way, being as this was the time before people would become all stabby over what is in effect a minor trespass).
As for "X" being cool for teenagers, well this one goes way back much farther into an entire different time period, in fact a time being the differentiator between "CE" and "BCE" namely, the crucifixion of JC himself. Upon the X. Naughts and X's. Don't get X with me! etc. Is "X" cool? And yet people are still all worked up over crucifixions etc.
(I asked my co-worker this one time what he thought the crucifixion was all about, like seems like quite a plastic hassle to get nailed up on the X over, and he said well actually he didn't remember the exact reason, and was shocked when I proclaimed it had to do with JC being persecuted as an ATHEIST. No, he did not like the sounds of that one little bit. But who would? I guess X still bothers and annoys people to this day, many centuries afterwards.)
Regarding the obsessions of Fruit Inc., one of the most notable things about their stores in US malls is how obviously they are Not There. That is, there is no sign, there are no flashing lights or people waving banners. It's inconspicuously conspicuous. Its very lack of presence proclaims it to be there, a facade of unbroken glass in front of a white room with no curtains, not by the station. If it wasn't a Fruit store, it would have to be the set of a Fellini movie.
Oh, and a British wag once said something to the effect that, in France or at least Paris, a parking space that no self-respecting Englishman would attempt to park in, will quickly be occupied by two Citroens and a moped.
And people wonder why I live in the middle of nowhere. The only person who can even get close to my house is me.
Of course, anyone is welcome to drive the 5km down a dirt track to park their, by now heavily damaged, vehicle outside my house, the dogs are always in need of fresh food and a nice place to sleep.
We are sort of lucky with a garage to keep the family car in, but we couldn't get the car out for 8 weeks or thereabouts, (except occasionally on Saturdays - handy for SWMBO to shop) as the council were digging up our cul-de-sac driveway to install a pedestrian crossing, then they thought that replacing the stormwater drain under the cul-de-sac would be a good idea also. This would have been OK except that when it came time to connect up to the main road drain, the new bit was a bit over 300mm (1 foot in the old money) out of alignment! So they started again and after 8 weeks we got our driveway back! BTW, we can't park out in front of our house as it is a bus stop...
Reminds me of parking our car in Sevilla in an urbanicacion, where parking space was rather scarce. We were told to not apply the handbrake and leave the gear in neutral, as cars needed to be pushed around to maximise the available space in the slots. Come next morning, our car had moved down the road for about 30m, seemingly all by itself :-)
Update: the curse that enrobes the kerbside in front of our home endures! We nipped out for the weekly food shopping and returned an hour later to find a car parked in front of our house, as usual. I duly parked in one of the million spare spaces nearby, as usual, and noticed as I walked back that the offending driver this time left his or her window wide open. In a thick rainstorm. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
I, too, have had recurring issues with the neighbors parking in front of my house. Plain and simple fact is that it's illegal to park in front of my house as it's a one-way street and the direction of the one-way means that cars must park on the opposing side of the street. At the time this was happening most frequently, none of the neighbors on the opposite side of the street had vehicles, so it was always possible to safely and legally park properly. However, the bastards always insisted on not following the law. For a stretch of time, I resorted to leaving my trash bin permanently on the street in front.
For the most part, the problem has been resolved (now 6 years later) except for when the neighbors have company over. There are extra spots around the corner that the city built specifically for this purpose, yet no one uses them. It is indeed frustrating.
[shakes head] Mr Dabbs, Mr Dabbs.[/shakes head]
I am surprised you have not come to understand the French psyche.
Here's how it works:
If there are two ways of doing something, with exactly the same outcome for your neighbour, the French way is to always chose the way that will **** over someone else. Always.
It adds to the charm of living in France.
I remember way back when I was a teenager, which was the last time I fretted about street parking, and it was some oaf had parked a crusty old Cadillac alongside the house where my dad had used to park his service van. And it sat there for several weeks, and it would come & go seemingly as my dad had gone, and then finally I had it and left a note on its windshield, which of course my dad handed back to me the next morning. Because his service vehicle had gotten broken into one time too many, so he bought this land yacht with the largest trunk in existence, where he stowed all of his service tools, with nobody the wiser not even me! But the lesson being that nobody, in fact, owns or controls the road: it is "public property," as it were, and if somebody chooses to use the public property adjacent to your house, which you thought was your public property, well no it isn't, it belongs to "the public" which includes all sorts of people who are different people than who you are. Which becomes an important lesson for any teenager to learn, because on another day while walking the dog on the public sidewalk and it peed against the public light post, which somehow disturbed the neighbor who lived nearest to the incident and thought they owned and controlled that sidewalk and light post raised an objection, but were promptly flummoxed to find out that not only does any random person have claim to use the public property, they can even let their dog wet on it, pretty much at will. You know, and if you want to call the cops, sure thing I'll hang around (but of course it didn't work out that way, being as this was the time before people would become all stabby over what is in effect a minor trespass).
As for "X" being cool for teenagers, well this one goes way back much farther into an entire different time period, in fact a time being the differentiator between "CE" and "BCE" namely, the crucifixion of JC himself. Upon the X. Naughts and X's. Don't get X with me! etc. Is "X" cool? And yet people are still all worked up over crucifixions etc.
(I asked my co-worker this one time what he thought the crucifixion was all about, like seems like quite a plastic hassle to get nailed up on the X over, and he said well actually he didn't remember the exact reason, and was shocked when I proclaimed it had to do with JC being persecuted as an ATHEIST. No, he did not like the sounds of that one little bit. But who would? I guess X still bothers and annoys people to this day, many centuries afterwards.)
Regarding the obsessions of Fruit Inc., one of the most notable things about their stores in US malls is how obviously they are Not There. That is, there is no sign, there are no flashing lights or people waving banners. It's inconspicuously conspicuous. Its very lack of presence proclaims it to be there, a facade of unbroken glass in front of a white room with no curtains, not by the station. If it wasn't a Fruit store, it would have to be the set of a Fellini movie.
Oh, and a British wag once said something to the effect that, in France or at least Paris, a parking space that no self-respecting Englishman would attempt to park in, will quickly be occupied by two Citroens and a moped.
And people wonder why I live in the middle of nowhere. The only person who can even get close to my house is me.
Of course, anyone is welcome to drive the 5km down a dirt track to park their, by now heavily damaged, vehicle outside my house, the dogs are always in need of fresh food and a nice place to sleep.
We are sort of lucky with a garage to keep the family car in, but we couldn't get the car out for 8 weeks or thereabouts, (except occasionally on Saturdays - handy for SWMBO to shop) as the council were digging up our cul-de-sac driveway to install a pedestrian crossing, then they thought that replacing the stormwater drain under the cul-de-sac would be a good idea also. This would have been OK except that when it came time to connect up to the main road drain, the new bit was a bit over 300mm (1 foot in the old money) out of alignment! So they started again and after 8 weeks we got our driveway back! BTW, we can't park out in front of our house as it is a bus stop...
Reminds me of parking our car in Sevilla in an urbanicacion, where parking space was rather scarce. We were told to not apply the handbrake and leave the gear in neutral, as cars needed to be pushed around to maximise the available space in the slots. Come next morning, our car had moved down the road for about 30m, seemingly all by itself :-)
Update: the curse that enrobes the kerbside in front of our home endures! We nipped out for the weekly food shopping and returned an hour later to find a car parked in front of our house, as usual. I duly parked in one of the million spare spaces nearby, as usual, and noticed as I walked back that the offending driver this time left his or her window wide open. In a thick rainstorm. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Obviously that space gets the best reception to connect to your WIFI and get a peek at your next ASIFW.
"Puts on Sunglasses, queue The Who drop fade to black"
One evening someone decided to pack in the entrance to our parking area. I was in a funny mood so I flashed my cars lights, so they had to drive out.
Very useful the remote light operation.
> So hang on, let me get this right: you think people want to put on $3,500 goggles in order to look at a calendar?
Of course they will, we are talking about Apple users here.
Mme D could have made a living in earlier times as a "cunning woman".
Unfortunately such behaviour resulted in ten people from the Pendle area of Lancashire being hanged in 1612.
The evidence you have presented in this article would have been enough to convict her - so be very careful not to further arouse her ire!
I’d have used Spellbound by Siouxsie Sioux et al.