Parking, or how dull is my life

Yesterday, I decided, as I got home from teaching, driving the pickup truck, that I would park in front of the house instead of the driveway, with the view that since Michael would have the day off, we might not be driving the truck as soon as we might the car, and so I wanted to leave it unblocked. We do this at least once a week, as situation demands. As I dragged my tool box out of the truck, our neighbor to the north, Carrie, girlfriend to Mr. Effington (Michael dubbed him this for his unbelieveable fondness of the Eff word), yells from her window, in a nasty and I suspect drunken tone:

"You have a driveway!"

Obviously, she thinks that the street is her place to park. So I yelled back, as coolly as one can be yelling in the street:

"I'm parked in front of MY house, and YOU have a driveway too."

Our street has parking on only one side, and that is limited by the short spacing between driveways. But it has annoyed me for some time that our neighbors think the only street space in front of our house is their personal parking property, and this really burned my butt. They live on a corner, and could easily park on the cross street (it is neither busy nor unsafe, simply to the side of the building, and out of their direct view, from the livingroom window). They also have a garage, and though I know it is rented out, I am not sure if it was rented when they moved in or if they chose not to take advantage of it. I think my having a tame life leads me to become lathered over relatively inconsequential things, but still ...

I asked Michael to start parking on the street every day.