okay, the situation is this:

chicago’s a big town, with lots of people who drive cars or trucks. there’s a limited amount of street parking, which is further complicated by [residential parking] zones, meters, and so forth. and, we happen to get some amount of snow every winter, which leads to further loss of parking real estate as the snow piles up, taking up square footage which used to be occupied by cars. (note to foreigners: we’re really good at parallel parking in this town.)

so there’s this well-known, and at least in my experience generally very well-respected, custom in chicago: when it snows, if you dig your car out of a snowdrift, you are allowed to lay claim to that spot until the snow is gone. you “lay claim” by piling crap up in the spot. most popularly the piled items take the form of lawn furniture, but people really use whatever they’ve got on hand, including real chairs, kiddie pools and toys, and i’ve even seen someone — who had obviously failed his new year’s resolution and was a little bitter about it — sacrifice a stationary bike to the cause of saving his spot.

a little history of the dibs custom, for your reading pleasure.

and mayor daley has even, famously, officially blessed the custom, saying, “That is their property. If someone spends all that time digging their car out, do not drive into that spot. This is Chicago. Fair warning.”

now here’s the problem:

because not respecting the spot saving (i.e., moving the shit out of the spot, so you can park) will get your car smashed (literally), few people are willing to risk taking a saved spot. since few people wiil risk taking a saved spot, there’s a very large incentive to save spots. since there’s a large incentive to save spots, people will do it at the drop of a hat.

like the jackass i saw today who had “called dibs” on a good two-spot stretch of the 6100 block of S. Woodlawn (with paint buckets, possibly full — which just adds to the threat factor of taking his spot).

sweetie, yes, it snowed this morning. ONE HALF INCH, YOU LAZY FUCKING TWIT.

i’ve had my fair share of shovelling out my car. as a matter of fact, i carry a full-size shovel (not one of those crappy folding ones; mine means business) in my car all winter long. i have a car-digging-out strategy, and a specific outfit for the job (long-sleeved t-shirt, t-shirt, sweatshirt, no coat; thin scarf around the neck; hat; awkwardly thick mittens; thick jeans, oversized so there’s some insulating air between the denim and my skin; et cetera). i know the gotchas, like how to be very careful shoveling snow off the hood, so you don’t scrape the paint with the back of your shovel (it’s key to be very familiar with the dimensions of your car so you can shovel all but an inch or two off the car, then brush the rest off). i’ve dug out cars that were snowed in on the street after the plows went through and threw a thick layer of sandy, icy crap over the two feet already on the car. i have more than once invested a good half-hour in digging out a car before i figured out that it was not actually my car, because there was so much snow you couldn’t actually tell.

yeah, sometimes it takes a long time. sometimes it is a pain in the ass and it makes you an hour late to work. and yeah, it’s frustrating to come home and not only is there nowhere within a block or two of your home to put your car, but the spot you so carefully excised from the snowbank has got some trixie’s freshly-washed jetta parked haphazardly in it, while her bumper sticker of “I’ve Got Mine” laughs in your face.

and yet …

you’re a big whiner if you sit there and moan about how it’s your parking spot and you deserve it. seriously, get over yourself. if you really didn’t want to deal with snow, you’d either move to the south or get rid of your car, and since you haven’t, you signed up for this. so deal with it!

and, Mr. Woodlawn Avenue 2005: get your shit off the goddamn road, and quit making my city look like a slum.