Apparently anyone's business is everyone's business. We got a letter from our tiny city (a bedroom community outside a much larger city), informing us that we were bad, bad people, for we had committed the sin of parking our own car on our own lawn on our own property. We aren't allowed to add a third driveway or to have a third garage slot, and when the snow begins to fall, we can't park on the street. So the solution, apparently, is to park two cars in the garage and one in the driveway. Then we can ritualistically pull cars in and out, or else manage the expert driving task of backing out of the garage (on a curved driveway) and maneuvering around the car that is on the driveway already. I can't drive in reverse very well at the best of times. With my astigmatism and somewhat reduced field of vision, I find driving forward to be a challenge.
We suspect that the "good neighbor" who complained is the same woman who walks her dog around the neighborhood every day. She has often complained about everyone's lawncare and gardening practices to anyone who would listen, so she makes a good suspect. Esteemed hubby, though not angry, was nevertheless miffed enough to park the third car so that its trunk extended over the sidewalk just a bit. Not much. Not enough to block the sidewalk, but enough to make people have to walk around Bessy's broad butt. I am so tempted to hang a placard in the rear windshield that says MY PROPERTY, MY HOUSE, MY LAWN, MY DRIVEWAY, MY CAR, MY BUSINESS. But--as my law-student son says--it's not a fight worth picking.
It will become a fight, though, if anyone breaks into the car, or if hubby or I accidentally back into it. As it is, I'm doing much more harm to the lawn than the car was doing just sitting there. Since I tend to wibble-wobble to-and-fro as I back up, I'm cutting quite a track into the lawn beside the driveway. I also have to dodge a large tree and our mailbox. So it's easy to trace the path of my reverse negotiation in the ruts and browning grass.
It seems really silly to have such neighborhood rules. I can understand the reasons for some of them, since we don't want to lower our property values, but right now, every other house in the subdivision has a For Sale sign in front of it anyway. This state has one of the highest bank foreclosure rates in the country. As much as I sympathize with folks who hope to recoup their investment since we, too, hope one day to sell and not lose money, there are just some things you shouldn't have the right to dictate for others. My neighbor keeps his boat trailer parked beside his house on the lawn. It's as big as a car. No one seems to mind. I can't help wondering if Bessy had been a brand-new Mercedes, would anyone have complained?
In just a month, we'll drive Bessy for the last time down to Younger Son's house. It's about 700 miles, quite a trip. No doubt this will be an emotional trip anyway, what with my graduation and our being forced to have Christmas on Dec. 15 so that the boys' wives can keep their jobs. They will all be going to the wives' families for Christmas, I guess, unless Older Son gets too ticked off with wife's mother, who apparently has engaged in a determined effort to convert her daughter and my son to her religion.
Tonight we put the electric mattress pad on the bed. Last year it was earlier when we put it on and late in May when we took it off. This year, thanks to the warmer-than-usual October and early November, we haven't had to pull it out until now. There have been a few snow-spit days, but not many, and only a couple of times have I screeched with cold when I slid between the sheets. Poor Bessy has had frost all over her burgundy paint for the last few mornings. Winter is a-coming, gentle reader. Will it be a winter of discontent, as the other Michigan winters have been for me? Or have I at long last psychologically agreed to be a Michiganian? Dr. S.
No comments:
Post a Comment