I live above the snow line.
That means that unlike a lot of Southern California I really do see a change in seasons. Well usually, this year has been a very strange year.
We’ve had a couple of snowfalls and that’s great for the ski resorts and for the town itself.
The down side of having snow is that the traffic on the weekends is nightmarish.
I think it’s actually worse than Huntington Beach on July 4th. I can say that because I lived in Huntington Beach for a number of years and while I love the town and the ocean, I planned to be gone during the Summer.
There were days when it could take 45 minutes to drive 4 blocks. If I wanted a carton of ice cream, I walked because that was the only way to get home with the ice cream unmelted.
Yep, walking to the grocery store was faster than driving.
I have the same problem where I live now. Only it’s magnified a bit, see there’s only one major road coming into town and all it takes is one idiot who thinks they don’t need chains on an icy road to screw everyone.
The other problem that we have is people who think it’s perfectly ok to drive up into a neighborhood, park wherever they want and let their children run rampant through yards to go play in the snow.
Aside from the general damage done to landscaping, there’s the liability issue. If one of these uninvited assholes gets hurt on my property, technically i’m liable. If they get hurt on the private road, my neighbors and I maintain, then all of us are liable.
So I find myself in frequent exchanges with our uninvited guests.
I want to give them a chance to leave of their own free will and hate to bother the Sheriff. But if they don’t leave I’ll make the call.
The exchanges always go one of two ways.
ME: Can I help you?
THEM: No we’re just here to play in the snow.
ME: That’s nice, there are several public play areas down just off the highway. You’re parked on private property and the rear of your vehicle is blocking the road.
THEM: We’re just going to be here a few minutes. We have children who’ve never seen snow.
ME: If the lady whose property you’re parked on, or the residents up the street who can’t get past your car decide to call the police you’re going to be towed. It really would be better if you went to the public play areas and then you could spend as much time as you want.
THEM: The traffic is really bad down there on the highway. Besides there are 50 people just down the block playing in the snow.
ME: Your choice, you’re telling your kids that it’s ok to invade a neighborhood without permission to do what they wish, but that’s your business. Stay the hell away from the fence line my dogs don’t like strangers. Dogs on queue start barking.
The second way this conversation goes is
ME: Can I help you?
THEM: No comprende
ME: No es amusment publico, Estans Casas private, Por favor vamanos.
THEM: FUCK YOU, We have a right to be here.
ME: Not really. This is a neighborhood and these driveways are cleared by the residents so that they have a place to park not so that strangers have parking.
THEM: Fuck You, come on lets go play up on that hill.
I soft peddle it a bit because on more than a few occasions the visitors have gone to their car or truck and pulled a gun on the homeowner asking them to leave. This hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m sure that it will at some point in the future.
Sadly it’s the nature of the people we’re dealing with. Which is not to be construed as racist. It’s more a statement about people that feel they don’t have to play by the rules.
What bothers me is the subtext of these exchanges.
(I’ve even fallen for it a couple of times because I can see the little faces pressed up against the windows of the car and I really do understand how excited they are.
In the situations where I’ve fallen for it I’ve let the people park in my driveway and sent them out back to play. I’ve been repaid for my kindness with trash on my lawn, and in one case dirty diapers left on my deck.)
The first exchange type, these people assume that I haven’t heard this story before.
I do understand the kids. They should have an experience and I really am torn about telling them no. It’s that old programming my parents gave me. Children are to be protected and cherished and is it really any skin off my nose to let ’em play in the snow out back?
But come on, You’re using your kids to con me…
I didn’t have anything to do with making your kids. Perhaps if you, or your wife / girlfriend offered to entertain me I’d feel differently.
Like all men I’m about a little sexual gratification. Someone on their knees in front of me, might persuade me to change my mind.
You’re telling me that traffic is bad?
Look dumbass I know traffic is bad because I can’t leave my house!
Weekends and holidays I plan to stay put because I know that it’s going to take me minimum 2 hours to get home if I go more than 20 miles away.
The second exchange type is just as bad if not worse.
They start the conversation with a lie. They try to make the dumb white guy think that conversation is useless because they “Don’t understand what he’s saying”.
When I try to converse with them in Spanish suddenly we have a miracle… They speak English just fine.
In both cases these people try to justify their actions (which I contend they know are wrong) by using the teenage fall back
“Everyone else is doing it”
I’m so tempted to tell these folks what my Mother used to tell me.
“20, 50 or 100 people it doesn’t matter, if they all jumped off a cliff would you?”
Recently we actually had a proof of that statement at a lake near here.
As it turns out the answer is yes for some people. There was a situation where people were sledding down a short embankment then out onto a partially frozen lake. 12 of them ended up in the water and one of them almost drown / froze to death.
The amazing thing about it is that there are signs in multiple languages saying that the lake is dangerous and that you shouldn’t walk on the ice.
Even as the ice on the lake was cracking and people were falling through into the water below. More and more people were walking out onto the lake to see what was going on. Some of them obviously stepping over cracks in the ice.
I digress, the message these people are giving their kids is that they’re entitled to take what they want.
They’re saying that it’s ok to violate the social contract that says you respect other peoples privacy and property, if you’re tired of sitting in traffic and you want something.
At the same time these people will bitch loud, long, and hard if they feel even the slightest affront to their perceived rights.
Implicitly, these people teach a double standard. Their rights are important but no-one else’s rights matter.
Worse they’re teaching the very racist message; “because you’re brown you don’t have to obey the rules.“
It’s been suggested that everyone in our town pick another town down the mountain on a particular day. Then we saddle up with our picnic baskets and our bathing suits and simply occupy an area.
We’d go have a nice party in some random neighborhood, use their pools and park all over the place, in driveways, on the streets, wherever.
Then when the cops showed up … and they would. We’d show the homeowners pictures of our driveways, and streets in the Winter time.
Maybe that would drive the point home.
More likely, my whole town would be in jail…
