Geneviève was fed up. These people were not playing by the rules and could not be convinced that parking in front of her house was just not done. Time and again they just ignored her and parked wherever they wished. Geneviève does not like to be ignored so she went to the mayor. And Charley doesn’t ignore anyone.
Parking in Maury is not a straightforward experience. Walking around town it appears that anyone can park just about anywhere. You see cars in front of doors and blocking driveways, streets become impassable because of oversized vehicles in the wrong places. But this is a very small town and you tend to know everyone and their car, so when you open the garage door and see Michel’s car, you walk down the street and tell him you need to get out. There’s time. Often, there will be a loudspeaker announcement from the Mairie asking someone to move, and if you don’t hear it you may be towed, but if your driveway is blocked when the Mairie is closed you’re out of luck. Someone decided to park in the middle of our street this weekend and just left it there for two days. Unbelievably, no one behind him tried to move a car and thankfully, there were no emergencies that would have required access.
Now some of this is unavoidable; most of these houses were built before cars and without garages and in some cases garages have been converted into additional living space. Sometimes people need to drop off groceries before parking and sometimes a visit lasts longer than expected. And then there are those who are just too inconsiderate and entitled to be bothered. They’re everywhere.
But there must be some underlying order to this and it probably has to do with how long your family has been in the village. A few months ago, I’d noticed others had been parking in front of Geneviève’s house, so I pulled up and no sooner had I set the brake then she popped out and waggled a finger at me. I told her it was just for a minute and received the blessing but it was clear I was not to make a habit of this. I figured all the other parkers were family but when it turned out to be the arrivistes from down the street, she went straight to the mayor.
So Charley called a meeting, right out on the street in question, and everyone on the block received notice, Tuesday at 6:30. This was an exciting event and since I was parked in my garage, I was in the clear. When I got out and saw the scene shaping up the first thing that came into my head was Cartier-Bresson’s photograph of a Nazi collaborator being denounced at the end of the war. I’d show it to you but I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was making comparisons, either of the situation or the photographers. And I still believe in copyright.
The Neighbors ©2012 Ron Scherl 
- The Mayor ©2012
The upshot of the whole thing is that these parking scofflaws are moving to Estagel in a couple of months (we knew they weren’t our kind of people) and Charley worked out a temporary solution to get us through the crisis:
– two of the offending vehicles which are not used very much will be parked elsewhere;
– everyone will take care not to park in front of low windows, front doors or garages;
– not on the sidewalks either;
– those people fortunate enough to have a garage will park there.
Oh, and everyone will please take their garbage cans inside as soon as possible after the collection. Seems careless parkers are also a little loose with the poubelles.
Charley expressed his hope that civility and common sense will lead to cooperation with this plan and he wouldn’t have to use his police powers to post signage and mark the road with parking instructions to be enforced by the gendarmes.
In other news:
The nearby village of Bugarach has called off “The End of the World” previously scheduled for December, 2012. A new reading of the Mayan calendar suggests things will go on for a while longer and the proliferation of t-shirt vendors was really bumming out everyone.