I Shall Look Upon My Enemy...

They are legion.  Shadowy figures lurking on the periphery of the world we humans inhabit.  The Wendigo.  The Loch Ness Monster.  The Moth Men.

Many have devoted their lives to seeking these elusive legends; grasping at every blurred photograph, each indistinct footprint, every last plea of 'I swear to God we didn't cook and eat grandpa, honest.' Most go their entire lives seeking such proof in vain.

I have seen my Wendigo. My Loch Ness Monster. My Moth Man.

I have seen.... the Driver of the Grey Sedan.

The full back story (if you are unfamiliar) can be found here, here, and a bit here.  Oh, and a followup here, because apparently I went on about it a fair bit.

This morning, as I pulled into my parking spot, the car across from me turned its car alarm on with the traditional honk and flash of lights.  I looked up and there it was.  My old Nemesis.  The Grey Sedan.

But more, standing next to The Grey Sedan...  was him.

The Shadowy figure with whom I had waged a silent, brutal, and largely passive aggressive war for so long.

The Driver of The Grey Sedan.

He was an older gentleman.  A bit heavyset. A mop of grey hair and a look of surprise and recognition on his face.

And I looked at him.

And he looked at me.

And we both... knew.

He did not hold the elevator for me. 

 
PS - It's a bit regrettable that it didn't turn out to be someone enormously attractive, because as was pointed out to me that would have made this the greatest 'how we met' story of all time.  Someone should write that screenplay.

Then Again, Maybe I'm Just A Terrible Person

Now, I don't suppose it's going to come as a surprise to anyone that I have been occasionally known to take the moral high ground here.*

*Unless this is the first thing you've ever read here, in which case - surprise.

While I stand behind my moral superiority for the larger chunk of things (and it should as always be observed that dogs are better than people), I've recently become aware that I might be at least partially evil.

Exhibit One - as regards the ongoing grey sedan situation.

I've discovered a couple of things about myself over the course of the ongoing parking spot struggle.  Primarily, that the threat of someone else taking my parking spot is enough to get me out of bed on time and into work before 9 (A feat that nothing else has heretofore accomplished)

But more than that, I've recently become aware that just getting to my spot as god intended isn't enough for me.  Sure, I get that celebratory rush as I pull into the waiting space, my firm vehicle thrusting forward into the tremulously waiting void.  It's purchase sliding gently into the waiting effervescent... I'm sorry, what was I talking about again?  Right... The parking spot...

I've realized that I'm not completely happy about things until I slip back down to the parking ramp mid-morning and look around to make sure the grey sedan is there and parked somewhere less convenient.  After all, if not then how am I to know that the owner of the grey sedan just wasn't coming in that day, in which case I would only have won by default.  It's not enough to have my rightful spot-  I need to have made the grey sedan suffer. I need to have beaten them.

I'm not entirely proud of it, but there it is.  When I see that well scrubbed and detailed shiny grey bastard parked in that awkward spot around the corner of the elevator bay where the smokers like to lurk, it moves me inside.  Mmmmmmmmmmm.  The sweet smell of victory and stale nicotine.

Exhibit Two - As regards uplifting religious videos

The other day I came across a 3 minute long video that had been posted by some well meaning church or other that showed a guy getting in his car and driving to get coffee.  On the way we hear his internal monologue as he's inconvenienced by all manner of things; a kid on a skateboard who gets in his way while backing out, a woman who steals his parking spot*, people that cut in line at the coffee place, etc.  Then, as he sits down in frustration he's approached by that all too common character in 'post racism' film and television - the 'mystical black person'** who hands him a pair of glasses that - when worn - allows him to see in writing what every single persons greatest personal issue is.

*He has my sympathy on this one.

** In all seriousness, this is a disturbing trend in modern film (see 'The Legend of Bagger Vance' to see the phenomena I mean.)  The upshot of it is that somehow Hollywood has embraced the concept that by showing minorities as 'mystical spirit guides' to their regular crew of white protagonists that it's somehow making a bold statement about race relations.  As opposed to what it's really doing, which is continuing the tradition of presenting all minorities as only being relevant in how they affect the lives of white people.  It really is, frankly, repugnant the more you dig into it and I whole-heartedly wish that we would all stop pretending it isn't.  A good overview of the issue can be found here, although - as always - Wikipedia should never be considered an unimpeachable source.

So, armed with these glasses, the man in question sees that the guy who cut in line at the coffee shop has just 'Never know the feeling of friendship', the woman who took his parking spot is 'mourning her best friend*, and the kid on the skateboard 'Just needs someone to care'.

*NO EXCUSE

The basic point, obviously, is 'hey butthole, everybody else has problems too.  Maybe you could cut the people around you a little slack'.  But what I took away from the video was 'Man.  You could make a killing out of people if you had those glasses.  I mean, just take the 'never had friendship' guy.  You don't suppose that if you became his friend he wouldn't... say.. buy dinner...?  A new blu-ray player...?  Plane tickets to Tahiti...?   You could unquestionably clean up with a pair of magic glasses that show you the primary weaknesses of each and every person who comes into your line of sight.  No question.  And God help the kid who 'just needs someone to care' should those glasses fall into the hands of the friendly neighborhood pedophile.

Sometime after the first fifteen minutes of thinking about this I started to question how good a person I actually was.

And then I went down to the parking ramp to look for a grey sedan.

Yeah..... Still totally winning...

When You Set Out For Confusing Vengeance, First Dig Two Bewildering Graves

Yes, the car saga continues.

As is now traditional, if you're not already up to speed on the whole parking space situation, you can find the beginning of the story here, and yesterday's followup here.

To sum up - Yesterday I lost my fight for the parking space and embarked on a scheme of revenge that consisted of leaving inexplicable coins on the roof of their vehicle in the hopes of driving them slowly insane.*

*It's a solider vengeance scheme than it seems like, just stated like that.  I swear.

What I had not planned upon, like so many before me, were the implications of unexpected victory.

Namely, today I succeeded in winning the parking spot for myself, and in the glow of that triumph I failed to consider one vital thing...

At the end of the day I returned to the parking space, still flush with the warm glow of knowing that you've won a petty and fairly arbitrary victory, I realized that there was something inexplicably wrong about my vehicle.  In some indefinable way there was something amiss.  And then I realized what it was.

There was no coin on my roof.

On some level I had genuinely been expecting there to be a coin on my roof.

I searched every surface of the car available, even pausing to look in the trunk on the off chance.  But there was no coin to be found.

Apparently on some level the coin had transformed overnight from a bewildering apparition to a concession of defeat.  'Here,' the coin said, 'I concede unto you the victory and offer up unto you your spoils.  With this coin I, unto you, fealty of the parking spot do concede.'

(Again, the owner of the other car is firmly a cast member of Richard II in my mind)

Finally I was forced to the conclusion that:

A: The owner of the Gray Sedan is not a regular reader of this blog (this is statistically unsurprising)

and

B: I was probably over-thinking the whole situation.

On the plus side, a big shout out to Sydney, who brought me in a Chuck-E-Cheese token this morning just in case I needed it.