That's What Breaks Are For

Oh, man! I have a story to share with you. I know Nisha will respect the storytelling (thanks, Nishk). This happened during my break today at work.

Around 10am or so, I was ready to take my first 15 minute break of the day. Sometimes I go outside and pray on a bench overlooking the water. Today I chose to go back to my car where my cell phone was (since I can't bring it in) and look over my texts and emails.

Now before the story begins, let me paint you a picture of the layout. In fact, I'm so bored these days that I took the liberty of drawing it for you all. Take a look at the drawing below. Don't mind the dashed lines for now, that will come later. (Sorry, it turned out blurry) Now, the parking garage is huge (the light green building). It's 6 levels high, and I always park at the upper level which is the rooftop. Note, however, that by 7:30am, the entire lot is full. I woke up late once, got in about 8am, and I ended up looking for parking forever. I had to park on the side street several blocks away, and it was only 2 hour parking, so I'd have to go out there every 2 hours to move my car. So annoying.

Anyway, so I walked from my building (Bldg 201--the blue building at the bottom) and headed to the parking garage. I went up the elevators to the 6th floor rooftop, and I got in my car to look at my phone. Since by 10am it's already about 85 degrees and muggy, I had the windows rolled down. I was there for about 5 minutes when all of a sudden I heard two cars honking their horns, and this black woman yelled, "I was here first!"

Immediately I turned to look what was happening. I had a perfect view of this whole incident. Two cars were half in and half out of ONE parking spot. The spot was directly straight if you are heading up the ramp, so my guess was the guy in the Volkswagen didn't see the woman from the right side with her turn signal on. That's why he bolted when the original car left the spot, and that's what brought on this whole confrontation.

So I'm just sitting there watching this. I could've gotten out and confronted them both, but since I didn't actually see what happened, I'd be useless. Furthermore, I wouldn't know who to get for help, let alone I kept thinking if I went for help, by the time someone got there, the whole thing would have been blown over. Boy was I ever wrong. I literally sat in my car in the heat to see what would happen. NEITHER car budged. They just put their cars in park, raised their hands to each other every once in a while (as if saying, "Come on!"), and never got out. I kid you not, people, I sat in the car for twenty whole minutes (yes, I overextended my break. Stop worrying, I didn't take an afternoon break to make up for it. Believe me it was worth it).

I just sat there laughing at these two child-like adults, wondering who would eventually act their age and finally move. Nope, wasn't going to happen this day. Both were too stubborn to just back away and let the other take the spot. At one point, I noticed the black woman was on her phone. I figured she was calling the police or something. I had no idea. Seriously though, nobody moved. I kept saying to myself, "Someone HAS to move. Who will it be?"

Around the 20th minute or so, these two big brothers start walking up the ramp to the rooftop. My guess is that the woman called these gentlemen because they went straight to the woman. I tried to listen to what they were saying, but I was too far to hear. All I know is that at one point, both brothers turned to look at the dude in the Volkswagen, and they did not look happy. I had my camera phone ready just in case they decided to break through this guy's window and pummel him. (Note: the camera phone would've done no good anyway. I tried to take a picture earlier, but there's no zoom, so it doesn't come out properly. And yes, I wanted to take a picture for the sole purpose of posting it on my blog...ha ha!).

Eventually the two guys turned around and started heading back down the ramp to where I'm assuming they got on the 5th floor elevator to head down. Since I had spent a good deal of time away from my desk, I figured it was time to head back, so I got out of my car and took the 6th floor elevator down to the ground floor.

Now this is where you can see the drawing below and the dashed lines will explain some routes. I got to the main floor and started walking back toward my building (green line). As I did, I noticed the two black guys walking in front of me (red line). I sped up a little to hear what they were discussing. At that moment though, a police vehicle pulled into the parking garage (blue line). One of the black guys just starts yelling, "HEY!!" Then they both started to run after the police (nature in reverse--ha!--that was racist, sorry.) People walking around were sort of freaked out because they were really loud and adamant. I was the only one who knew what they were doing. They were going to tell the police to drive to the top floor to deal with the incident.

I turned left to head toward my building. When I got to the main doors, I hesitated (white circle in the middle of the green line path). "Man, I really want to see what happens. I invested too much time to not see the outcome." At the last second, I decided to continue in a loop and head right back to the parking garage. I felt like a total white guy (i.e. most white people will want to see what's going on when either danger or confrontation is imminent, and brown people are usually smart enough to turn around and run away without hesitation or question).

I jumped back into the elevator and got to the 6th floor. While the doors opened, I saw a lady standing there staring at the scene. There were 3 or 4 cop cars at this point. I think the driver of the Volkswagen was in the middle of about 6 cops, yelling about the situation. The cops were scolding the guy. In the meantime, the cops had let the black lady park her car in the spot. About this time, some of the cops turned and looked my direction. I didn't want them to think I was simply there to check out the scene, so I just turned around and finally headed back to my desk (after my 30+ minute break!). :)

Anyway, I just thought that was a funny story. I can't believe two adults just sat there in their cars doing nothing, leaving their cars half in and half out of a parking spot. I mean seriously? Are you that stubborn to just give the spot to someone else? I guess that's what happens when the parking lot gets full and there's really no other free place to park close by. Also at one point, I saw the woman recline her driver seat back and sort of lounge. Wow!

And I know, I should've done more to help out rather than to sit back and laugh at them. I seriously thought about telling one of them they could have my spot while I go park on 2 hour side street parking again. But you know what, whatever happens in D.C. stays in D.C. (or in my blogs). :)

If you learned nothing else in this posting, take with you the fact that you ought to take your work breaks. Anything can happen.

(Key: Yellow and gray buildings are irrelevant. The gray building, by the way, is the NCIS building -- people might have watched the show. South of my building is Anacostia River. Between my building and the parking garage is another building that I need to walk around)