No Parking

I don't usually have issues with my neighbors. They're all awesome people, and I'm glad that I have the privilege of living next to them. Recently, however, new people moved in two houses down and their renovations and the attendant noise/lack of parking is annoying the hell out of me. See, they have these contractors there, day and night, starting at 7:00 in the morning with a whole hell of a lot of noise. Most days, as in Monday-Thursday, this isn't a problem. I'm up anyway. Friday-Sunday, though, you gotta lay off the hammering. The noise, though, is really secondary to the parking situation. The contractors have turned my formerly quiet, easy-to-park-on street into a damn parking lot, and it's making me want to scream.

First, there's the absolutely gigantic pickup that takes up two spaces on its own. Yes, they're contractors, they need to haul things, whatever. This pickup, though, doesn't haul anything. It just sits in the parking space that I used to use and does nothing, all day long. I got so mad that I (politely) asked that the pickup be moved to the big, empty space in front of the house that they're working on. Seemed reasonable to me, but the next day the pickup was back and the big, empty space was all big and empty again. But, one truck, fine, not so bad. Then there's the car carrier, that's not actually hauling a car and just sits there all the time, 24 hours a day. Still not that big a deal, we're only missing about 3 spaces here, what with the car carrier and the pickup taking up two spaces all on its own. But, there's also the car that the carrier used to be carrying. Then there's the dumpster, the ubiquitous New Orleans dumpster. Two more spaces. Now we're starting to get to the parking lot look, and I've been having to haul my groceries/books/self the whole way down the street instead of being able to conveniently park in front of my house. But wait, there's another huge pickup, also taking up two spaces. You three freakin' contractors are taking up half the damn street and there is still a big, empty space in front of the house that you're working on! So, because I'm childish, I feel that now I have to make it a point to glare at the truck whenever I walk by it on the way to my house. The truck, of course, doesn't see me glaring, but I'm hoping that its owner will sense my rage from the backyard and feel the need to move his monstrosity. Since this hasn't worked, I decided that I would park close enough to the truck today that it would be a real pain in the ass to get it out. Hmmm, you'd think my recent 25th birthday would have had some effect on my maturity level, but apparently not. With the parking in and the glaring, I've reached the stage where I'm both exceedingly mature and passive agressive. And I still don't have a place to park.