We have a two-car garage in the back of our duplex, which we unfortunately have to share with the people downstairs. To start with, I would not be totally shocked if one day I woke up and the entire garage has collapsed on top of my car. It's probably the first garage ever built. Alternatively, it would not be surprising if I found that the ground underneath the garage had given way and my car fell into a sinkhole. And then the garage collapsed and also fell into the sinkhole on top of my car. When we first moved in, our landlord told us that he needed to fill the flooring in the garage before we could park in it. The garage was built over a creek that runs to the lake and every spring when the ice and snow melts, the dirt/former cement flooring crumbles and sinks down, creating a Honda Fit-sized hole in our garage space. Needless to say, I only really park in there when there is some form of precipitation in the forecast and it is below freezing. The good thing about the garage is that the side that belongs to the people downstairs goes mostly unused. They have so much crap inside of it that they can’t fit either of their cars inside. This is what the garage typically looks like when both garage doors are up:
During the last snow storm, Guy somehow got the motivation to clean up their garage space so that he could park his car inside. I think he must have been on one of those coke-induced productivity highs. We live on a snow emergency route, which--during times of large snow accumulation--renders street parking a treacherous zone of tow aways, parking tickets, and the threat of street plows coming through and encasing your car in an igloo. I also have no faith in Guy to read, let alone understand, the complex snow emergency parking rules associated with our city. From an outsider’s perspective, I am sure it looked really creepy as we sat up in our apartment, peeking out our bedroom window, and watched Guy pick up heavy stuff, move it 2 feet, and set it back down. But it was thoroughly fascinating for two reasons:
1) We had never witnessed Guy actually do anything other than smoke and stand in one of our two yards and watch their dog take a shit. It was like spotting a bobcat or a bear cub climbing a tree!
2) We were pretty sure that his plan was not going to work and we wanted to catch the moment when he also realized this. They just had way too much crap that no matter how he rearranged the pieces, there was no way his mid-sized sedan would fit inside. For instance, they had a queen sized mattress (complete with a large brownish stain down the middle), a treadmill or gazelle-type workout machine, approximately 6 plastic sleds (why that many!), folding chairs, and one of those big balance/work out balls, just to name a few items.
Unfortunately for us, we missed the point in time where Guy came to this realization. And even more unfortunate, we missed the point in time when he decided that this was a completed job. I can't remember if we grew bored and went to watch TV or if we really had something else to do, but all I remember is going outside later that day to get in my car and go somwhere, only to find the ridiculous, final and completed project. It was snowing heavily already, and as we had suspected all along, there was not enough room in their garage stall to fit a car. So instead, Guy decided to shove everything they had to the back of the garage space and then just pulled as much of his car into the garage as he could. This is what it looked like from a side-view angle:
He then left it like that, with their garage door open and with the wind blowing snow into both of our garage stalls. I'm upset I didn't witness the precise moment when Guy finished this little project because I think I could have at least judged his body language to see how he felt about his... accomplishment. When he drove the car into the stall, then stepped out and took a few steps back, did he admire what he saw in front of his eyes? Did he do a little endzone dance and say to himself, "Perfect! Just like I wanted it!"? Or did he see that half of his car clearly did not fit into the garage, shake his fists at the sky, and yell his favorite phrase, "FUCK!" If it was the latter, then it was surely immediately followed by "Hmm, I wonder what's on TV?" because then he promptly went back into his apartment. I'm sorry, but what is the point of this?! Half of your car is semi-protected from the elements. You have to scrape either way, and now, all of the crap in your garage is going to be covered in snow too. How do you even pick which half of your car gets the protection? Seriously, what does this do? I should have tipped off some unruly youths from the nearby high school that there were some sweet sleds up for grabs in an unattended and unsecured garage stall.
Luckily, that snowfall came and went pretty quickly, as did all of the snow we got this winter. It all melted away and Guy only parked his car in that peculiar set up for one night. We haven't had a big snowfall since, so I am anxiously awaiting his next move in the coming days. The garage space is still organized as it was from the last storm. And by organized, I mean all their crap is still shoved all the way to the back of their stall and there is a 4-foot long space of emptiness that fits precisely half of a car.
A full report to follow!
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