I'm getting a little tired of living in California. The self-righteousness and self-centered behavior has really begun to fray my nerves. More so than any other place I've lived, Californians (maybe it's Northern Californians? Bay Areans? San Franciscans? People originally from elsewhere who now live here and are "ruining" the City? Call them what you will…) seem to move about with an air of entitlement that borders on the absurd. Add to that a dollop of "I know how you should act" -ism, and it's enough to send me scurrying back to New England where people are gruff and cold and leave you alone.
Witness today's incident (if I had a scanner, I'd post the original here): my car has been parked for the past six weeks in the exact same parking place on Carl @ Arguello. Six weeks. I never drive it. I have a parking permit. The street has cleaning only once a month (and I forgot to move the car). So my car has sat for six weeks under a pine tree, getting stickier and dirtier by the day. I check on it every few days or so, just to make sure it's ok. It always is. I watch the rest of the cars come and go, and my little Honda just sits.
So imagine my surprise when I found this note stuck to my windshield:
You just performed an act of seriously inconsiderate parking by not pulling forward. Which you could have done. You are at my bumper. Please try harder next time. Karma is real.
Huh? I'll leave it to Karma to straighten this one out, but I suspect someone's got a black mark next to one's name for being a little too aware of what others are doing, and not quite aware enough of one's own (parking) actions. Unless of course, someone moved my car back a foot without my knowledge, which is entirely possible. Perhaps it was like a Mentos® (the Freshmaker) commercial. Perhaps an old lady needed to cross the street and helpful Californians moved my car to clear her path. Certainly such a noble act would be taken into account by Karma, wouldn't it?