Hey moron!
Yeah, I’m talking to YOU.
Don’t look around like you don’t know who I’m talking to, you goofball.
Yeah, you, the selfish dumbass who’s just dumped two plastic lawn chairs, or milk crates or orange cones or whatever crap you have lying around your garage, onto the street in front of your home, to try to save that parking space.
Oh.
It’s OK, you say. Because you shoveled out that space all by your lil’ ol’ self!
Wow! Now it all makes sense to me, it’s so transparently obvious now…
Ummm, no, not really.
Boo-F@cking-Hoo! Cry me a river you pansy!
Let me slap some sense into your thick skull.
First, you do not, I repeat DO NOT, own the street–no matter how much snow you shoveled off the pavement.
The streets are owned by everyone. You, me, all the taxpayers. We pay for the streets via gas taxes and city vehicle stickers we purchase every year.
Street parking is first come, first serve. No matter the season, no matter the conditions, no matter if you happen to have your junk out on the street. No exceptions.
It’s like standing in line, or waiting your turn. It’s something you should have learned in kindergarten. It’s a societal tradition that is so deep, so ingrained, it trumps this so-called Chicago tradition of using trash to save your parking spot.
I don’t care if Mayor Daley and most of the alderman give you a smile and a wink and look the other way. They’re a bunch of lilly livered, frontally lobe challenged sissies as well.
So unless you’re old or sick or feeble, you have no excuse for being so pathetic.
Second, you’re from Chicago. You live in the city. You’re not some milquetoast suburbanite, who pulls into their three car, heated garage every evening. You live in a city where you have to park on the street. You’re tough and strong, damnit!
Chicagoans used to be a brawny, hard scrabble bunch. Remember? Chicago is the “city of the big shoulders”, Carl Sandburg says. People with character, strength and resolve. Individuals with a strong backbone and not a limp wrist. NOT a city of faint hearted people and weak spirit whom are bothered by a little bit of snow shoveling.
What the hell happened? When did you go soft Chicago?
Have you been reduced from the “city of the big shoulders,” to the city of “crappy lawn furniture on snowy streets”?
Third, it’s not neighborly to hog a parking spot and throw a bunch of your personal flotsam and jetsam onto the street. It’s unsightly, it’s ugly, it’s littering, it’s uncool.
What happened to chivalry? What happened to a sense of community in our neighborhoods and on our blocks? Are you that self-centered, boorish and immature that you’re gonna try to save that parking space with a folding chair? C’mon now!
So listen up nitwit! Here’s what you’re going to do.
You’re going to take all that crap you left on the street and put it back in your yard or garage or basement or into a dumpster where it belongs.
Next, you’re gong to take your show shovel and dig out ANOTHER space. That’s what good neighbors do. That’s how kind and considerate neighbors behave. That’s how Chicago should act.
Now that you’ve reclaimed your self respect and manhood, you should feel better about yourself. Stand tall, stick your chest out and walk like you’re from that big city called Chicago.
Got it?!?
Good!
Posted in 
I agree with every word.
And would like to add that the people at the end of my street who have marked off their space WITHOUT even bothering to shovel are really pushing my neighborly spirit.
Also…the people who do a lame job of shoveling out their chosen spots, so that piles of snow remain between the cars even when most of the snow has already melted…yeah…kinda don’t like them.
And finally, the two sons of crickets who have had their cars parked on an expanse of street between two drives that can EASILY fit three cars, but have parked in such a way that only their two can fit, and have had their cars parked there for at least a month…well, lets just say I am throwing a party for all my burly guy friends and once I get them a little loaded, I am taking them out to move the cars to a more appropriate arrangement.
Sometimes, a little soft vigilantism is necessary in cases like this. Especially if the alderman and/or Streets & San. don’t do their job.
Keep us posted.
I laughed, I cried. Well put and I agree 100%. I don’t give a flying _____ that this is a quaint Chicago tradition endorsed by city politicians and many residents. Where is the feeling of community? Where is the neighborly spirit? In my 10 years of living in the city, I have shoveled out a spot on many occasions and have never once put some crap in the street to mark it as mine.
But you know where the real problem comes in? If I were to one night come home and have nowhere to park, I would be afraid to move some crap in the street for fear of what someone might do to my car. Probably nothing would happen. But I wouldn’t do it just in case.
You see, this is how things work in our fair city. Quaint, cute, little traditions with a healthy dose of fear of repercussions and consequences if you don’t toe the line. Things run veeeeeery smoothly as long as everyone knows their place and does as they’re told. We’re “the city that works” for a reason. Everything works. Just don’t ask how or why.
Thanks for the kind note Anna.
I think there are a lot of people like you and myself out there that complain and mutter under our breath about the situation and are too polite and/or worried about the blow back from parking in a junk reserved spot on the street. Who needs the extra hassle of a fight–physical or verbal?
[...] after I wrote my heated tirade on street junk the other night, as I lay in bed, I thought, there had to be a be a way to help frustrated city [...]
It would be fare easier and more educational to snow shovel a few extra spots on the block other than your own. For example, I snow shoveled my side of the street, then any other spot across the street knowing full well that others would park in my shoveled spots. At this point both sides are shoveled and nobody can put their garbage the street and we’re fully snow shoveled. No waiting for the city, Daly whoever. We’re good. Do unto others people, it might catch on. -The Love Movement
Apparently everyone on my block doesn’t give a hoot about tradition or effort. We’ve got no space savers and there is absolutely no effort to get the streets clean so that there is enough room for everyone to park. And now we’ve got rock hard black bumpy snow!