judging people
I frightened an immigrant Somali* teenager this morning.
But I had good reason. She was in my parking space.
She was in. My. Parking. Space!
We judge people all the time, in our day to day lives. Usually our judgments are based upon someone’s physical appearance or (less likely) their moral character or their work ethic. However, those of you who live, or have lived, in apartment buildings know that a different set of criteria is necessary for judging one’s neighbors.
Specifically: do your neighbors park in your space?
Consider these two hypothetical neighbors.
Example #1
LANDLORD: I should warn you, the guy in 2B is nuts. Like, he’s got this murder-cannibalism thing going on, and think he believes that if he murders thirteen times thirteen innocents, he can open a portal to the Outer Darkness and summon in the Great Dark Ones to feast upon the souls and sanity of all humanity.
ME: Does he park in other people’s spaces?
LANDLORD: Nope. He’s got this windowless van he keeps locked in a storage locker down by the river.
ME: Well…so long as he’s quiet, right?
Example #2
LANDLORD: The guy in 3B donated his entire fortune to charity, which is why he lives in this building instead of the mansion he sold to raise funds for disaster relief. He spends all his time reading to sick children at the hospital and working at the food pantry. Oh, and he parked in your space so he could load up the ninety boxes of cookies he made for the orphanage.
ME: This means WAAAAAAAARRR!!!
I think we can all agree that Example #1 would make for the better neighbor. Especially since he’s quiet (he had his apartment soundproofed, for some reason) and he’s extremely conscientious about keeping the place clean – he orders bleach and Windex by the truckload!
I’m kidding, of course. Example #1 would not make for the ideal neighbor. The ideal neighbor would be to have no neighbors at all. But this is difficult to manage in an apartment building.
But, in the end, I was nice, and said “please” and used absolutely no swear words at all**, and the Somali girl apologized and promptly vacated my space. And I’m sure she learned a valuable lesson. Namely, do not park in other people’s parking spaces, because otherwise a crazy-eyed man will stalk out of the freezing darkness at six in the morning and politely ask you to vacate his parking space.
And it could have been worse. She could have parked in 2B’s space. And that guy is nuts!
-JM
*Bet you thought this post was gonna be about terrorism or something.
**Which was really f*$%ing hard, let me tell you.