Cold is one way.
Yay, good people, cast yor mynds backe. Waye waye backe thoroughe the mysty whyspey mystes of thyme to February last year. I’ve just had a knee operation and I’m starting out on gruelling, long-winded and interestingly tedious* road to recuperation and recovery (which I’ve pretty much made having just whipped the shit out of Ben and Trent down at the local courts).
I am also, according to this blog entry, pissed off at the people across the road. The serial tooters. I don’t know if they read this blog or if they, like us all, have grown up just little over the last twelve months. But I can be fairly safe in guessing that it’s neither. Here’s why:
Exhibit A: Ben moves in. Ben owns extra car. Small, four-door hatch. Ben parks car on street across the road from The Serial Tooters.
Exhibit B: TSTs have big cars. The new Triton is (hopefully) about as close to the Ford F-650 as Australia is likely to get. Their friends have big cars.
Exhibit C: Everyone who visits TSTs loves to park directly across from our driveway, where 327 and I back our (small and tiny respectively) cars out. Even with our miniscule turning circles, we both find it difficult to get in and out. Not so difficult that we’d actually complain to anyone but each other, just difficult.
Exhibit D: The parking ticket. You heard it right folks: the parking ticket. On Ben’s windshield. $31. For parking the wrong way around. After not being able to park on his approach side of the street because of the excess of Beefy Steel on it. That would have to be a very very lost parking inspector to a) find our street in the first place and b) be bothered stopping their car, getting out, firing up the ticket machine and going about his or her business.
Exhibit E: The Tantrum. Let it not be said that Mele is not quick to defend her loved ones. In this case she positively bounded to the (allegedly) correct conclusion that TSTs either shopped Ben to the Sticker-Lickers OR are a family of Sticker-Lickers themselves with ample access to sticker-licking machines and a great deal of self-righteous audacity.
Exhibit F: The Frightened Silhouette. Exhibit E did not go unnoticed by someone at TST Head Quarters. For as the (loud) accusations tumbled across the kitchen, down the hall and over the road at least three of our number saw a silhouette pop up at their screen door. We watched. They watched. Mele yelled some more testing and accurate assertions. The silhouette dodged, looked, remained. Smiled, even (I imagine). But when I waved to them—flick. Gone.
Guilty!
Guilty your honour! Off with their heads! Out with the paint-stripper and midnight key-runs! The pranks are on! Parking their cars² everywhere and annoying the shit out of me a year ago is one thing, but calling the parking inspector on a fair young Brisbanite because he parked his car in the way of their suburban truck staging arena is quite another. So the decision was made. There was to be no violence, no anonymous police reports and no letterboxes full of Polyfilla. We would take the valuable lesson taught by unions and wildebeest alike: strength in numbers.
As mentioned previously, we are a small car family. That is: we have three small cars. Just enough to park one on each side of TSTs driveway and another directly across from TSTs driveway. The right way around, of course.
Watching TSTs come, nay, roar home in their truck, only to spend a good five minutes doing the Austin Powers reverse-forward-reverse-f orward golf-cart shuffle in order to avoid parking the thing on the street and crushing our little white lady cars is utterly worth (Ben) paying the $31. The parking campaign has continued for a week and only today has Dan decided that TSTs have learned their lesson and called off the Nissan brigade. Honda In A Hurry is still taking pride of place, staring down TST’s driveway and challenging any inconsiderate reversing, reminding TSTs that two can play at that game.
It doesn’t end here folks. Oh no. They didn’t take it laying down. A few days ago they sent infants/ry to knock on our door and run away before Dan could answer it with the customary ‘Hey, you kids!’.
I think I speak for our entire household when I look bravely, righteously over the fence and howl ‘OOOO! We’re so scared!’
We win. With style. As usual.
* For more references to this little-known phrase, let Google guide you!