car wars and shed monsters

• By Alison
• 24 November, 2009
• 8 Comments

Photo credit  CmdrGravy

Our street is a typical outer London street, in that it’s not wide enough for two cars to pass each other, without the potential danger of one of them needing a new paint job after the fact.

This leads to the common practise by those of us who live here of waiting at the bottom of the street for a car that is already navigating its way down. And then of course, as the two cars pass at the cross street – a thank you nod from the waitee to the waiter. It’s common sense, and it’s basic courtesy. Plus it makes us all happy, and no-one needs to buy a can of touch up paint from Halfords in a colour that will nearly – but not quite – match your car’s duco.

But sometimes there are people who are not local to the area, and sometimes there are people who are not used to practising common sense or courtesy. Sometimes all three in one.

I was walking back up the road after dropping my girls off at school today when I witnessed one of those events. Three cars were coming down, two were going up. The first car going up was already at the half way point, but luckily for her there was a disabled parking bay that was currently empty – and made a usable passing point.

The other car going up started backing back down the road to the cross road. Now this is where it gets funny. At that road was a woman drinving a Jaguar, who had partially turned onto the road. No-one was behind her, but when she saw the car in front backing slowly towards her, rather than evaluating the situation and putting her own car in reverse, she waiting until the other driver was close, then sat on her horn. And sat.

How do some people live with themselves? This post is starting to cross over into yesterdays – self righteous, self entitled, self obsessed people! The car doors opened, the argument began – I was now too far up the road to see how it was resolved. I am sure it was quickly smoothed and soothed. But in there past there have been some incredible reactions by different people.

One such occasion was related to me by my neighbours, as it was before my time. There evolved a standoff between two drivers facing each other. It was outside our house, which is close to the top of the street. That means that the person who had just turned in from the main road should have backed their car back up to a passing point (and there is plenty of space at the top of the street to do that). But no. Both drivers sat. And one of them sat on the horn. After 5 minutes my neighbour popped out like a very irate jack-in-the-box to tell these two drivers to sort it out and just p%$# off already. They didn’t. The hand was removed from the horn, but neither driver moved.

Guess how long they sat there? Nearly one HOUR. Can you get your head around the type of person who is SO self entitled that they won’t even move their car for an hour? Other drivers ended up coming up the street, then backing down again, finding alternate routes get around thanks to two ladies who had decided that driving a car was in some way like the battle of waterloo, and each of them was honour bound to win.

They finally moved when the gathered neighbours called the police. Maybe a small spark of sense appeared in one of their heads, but rather than risk explaining themselves to the beat, they left.

Thankfully, that’s rare, and has never happened again in my knowledge, but there have been much shorter incidents involving screaming fights and people getting out of their cars to yell at the other, and demand that THEY back up.

So it keeps occurring to me that I should write to the council and suggest that they make our street and the one next to it into one way streets. It seems a logical idea. The only trouble is, that if I write to the council about this, I know who will answer. My sort-of neighbour from four doors down.

When we first moved in here there was a councillor who lived in our road. We didn’t know he was a councillor at first, we called him the shed monster. Or sheddie – for short. I have no idea of the complex relationship that he and the lady of the house had, but it had to be “a relationship” because you don’t have screaming arguments in the backyard with someone unless there is also passion in the mix. And she would be screaming at him, and he would retreat to the shed and hide.

It wasn’t a shed for lawnmowers and bikes like ours, it was more a little garden house. And it’s where he lived. Honestly. Day or night, there he’d be in his shed. From our bedroom window we had a great (although unwanted) view of him sitting in the shed, at his desk, watching TV.

Now, he didn’t sleep in the shed. Not intentionally, anyway. But one night we were woken up by banging, and looked out the window to see him thrashing about in his shed. He was in his bathrobe and a tracksuit, with a bottle of scotch (or something that looked a lot like a bottle of scotch, but was alcoholic, either way). He was punching the walls of his shed. We watching in painful bemusement as he punched the filing cabinets, the window, the wall, and then the desk. But he didn’t punch like a MAN punches. He was doing some whacky kind of backhanded slap with both hands.

It was like watching a trainwreck. We wanted to stop watching, but we couldn’t help ourselves! Finally he sat down, aggression spent, and we went back to bed shaking our heads and giggling.

So this is what happened last time I wrote an email to the council about a letter they’d sent us regarding parking permits (because I’m THAT woman, who just has to have her say!). I was getting out of my car when up comes the shed monster and speaks to me: “I got your email.”

I was – quite admittedly – lost. When had I emailed him? His balding pate and ruddy cheeks threw me off, I don’t think I’d even even spoken to him, or been so close to him that I could see the open pores across his nose. He went on to say that he’d be sending out an amended letter from the council, about the re-evaluation of the the parking system, and then it clicked.

Oh My God, if I send an email to my local council, it goes to shed monster. He’s my “government”.

To his credit though, the amended letter did get circulated the next week. I wonder if he has any idea that we’ve seen what might be his darkest moment? (Although in the depths of governments, I am pretty sure there are darker moments to be had!) Could that be why I got prompt attention? Maybe I should take more advantage of that!

I am distracted from typing this by a sudden car horn outside. Is there a new altercation about to erupt? The only thing worse than two people refusing to budge, is the times that they decide that they CAN fit to pass each other in the street. The outcome of that is nearly always the aforementioned paint damage, or completely tearing off the wing mirror from at least 2 cars. I stick my head out the window and no-one is there anymore. But it will happen again soon.

So I guess I need to bite the bullet and write a new email to the council about it before it’s too late. Maybe I could mention my love of sheds in order to get a swift response!