No Parking
The folks on Sunset Beach are having a problem with beach visitors parking their cars all over the neighborhood, blocking driveways, streets and fire hydrants. One proposal is to issue resident only parking passes and littering the landscape with all sorts of “No Parking” signs in an effort to keep visiting beach goers, mostly young and mostly driving over amplified compact cars, from parking in the front yards of Sunset Beach residents.
Being a former Sunset Beach resident I understand the parking problems that have plagued that neighborhood since Henry Ford rolled out the first Model T. However, parking restrictions mean parking signs to explain those restrictions which mean people like me are going to have to read those signs and try to comprehend what the sign is trying to tell us. You see, I am Parking Sign Challenged. I find it almost impossible to figure out what the creator of a parking sign is trying to explain to me about what is legal or illegal when parking on the street the sign rules over.
Now I’m sure you are saying to yourself what kind of idiot can’t figure out what “No Parking” means. Well, it’s not the “No Parking” that gets me; it’s when they add stuff like “Anytime”. I get the “No Parking” but I don’t get the “Anytime”. You see if I ask you to stop by my house “anytime” that means when you get around to it stop by. However, if I ask you to stop by my house at 1 PM that means you stop by at 1 PM, not “anytime” but a “particular time”. If I want to park at 1 PM that’s not “anytime” that’s 1 PM, a “particular time”. The parking sign reads “No Parking Anytime” not “No Parking at a Particular Time.” It makes perfect sense to me. It didn’t make perfect sense to the Traffic Court Judge who quickly said “Guilty, pay the clerk.” upon hearing this theory.
It’s bad enough I don’t get the “Anytime” but when the sign starts to tell me I can’t park between the hours of, or on certain days of the week, or on holidays, or even during certain months that I really get confused. I once pulled up to a parking sign that read, “No Parking Between 9 AM and 9 PM except on Weekends and Holidays Between April and September” and sat in my car from April to September trying to decide if I could park there or not. The good folks who lived on the street I was trying to park on brought me food and water to keep alive while I tried to figure out what to do. I barely have a grasp on day and night much less knowing what time it is or what day of the week it is or if it is one of the more than 30 recognized holidays or even what month it is. Asking me to pinpoint the exact moment in time causes all sorts of cranium overload. This all is due to the fact I am suffering from delayed stress syndrome from the day in college I discovered Captain Kangaroo was not actually a Captain or a Kangaroo.
Yes, I do have a clock in the dashboard of my car. Unfortunately it was set by the dealer when I bought the car and I don’t remember if it was set to daylight savings time or regular time. This means of course that my car clock could be an hour ahead, hour behind or right on the clock, so to speak. All this results in a one in three chance of knowing the correct time when I pull up to a parking sign that has time restrictions posted on it.
Yes, I do have a couple of calendars lying around but they are attached to my refrigerator which is somewhat cumbersome to carry around in my car. Anyway, it seems to me that if I’m not real sure what time it is, knowing what day of the week it is or what month it is doesn’t much matter.
I think we should have “No Parking Over There” signs. That’s right, “No Parking Over There”. That way I could pull up to the “No Parking Sign” and park there because I’m “there” at the sign where I can park and not “over there” away from the sign where I can’t park. It makes perfect sense to me. Instead of stopping, getting out of my car and trying to understand some lawyer inspired jargon painted on a parking sign I could just pull up to the sign and park because I’m “here” and not “over there”.
By the way, do you think Mr. Green Jeans was his real name?