Viva La Reservacion!

Over the years, I’ve supported many causes, but led few. Supporting a cause is easy. If someone asks you if you believe in what they’re trying to do, you say yes. If someone thinks that you signing a petition will enhance a grass roots movement, you say yes. If someone would like you to wear a vulcanized rubber bracelet to broadcast to the world your inner values, you say yes. If someone asks you if you’re a god, YOU SAY YES!

/obligatory Ghostbusters joke

But leading a cause? That’s tiring work. I led a one-person letter-writing campaign for Comedy Central to cancel Strangers with Candy, on grounds of it “sucking like a Hoover.” (I wasn’t very clever when I was 17.) I promoted the most delectable new snack aisle fixture, the Reese’s FastBreak Candy Bar, to everyone I knew when I was 21, and my efforts inevitably caused market adaptation. There have been lesser crusades that had mixed results, but that won’t prevent me from taking the torch for the name of Camden Fairfax Corner Apartment residents EVERYWHERE!

(If not everywhere, at least the ones that live at, well, Camden Fairfax Corner Apartments.)

It’s time to put on the Revolution Shoes (which sound 91% cooler than they look.)

My apartment complex is a bastion of hope for those who wish to make their vehicles stationary in close proximity to Fairfax Corner. Yes, we no longer live in an age where one has to plan an extra 8 minutes into their schedule when arriving for a movie. The parking at FC has been a problem since inception, and it often prevents consumers from coming to this commercial haven. We had it up to here (this is where a webcam would help), and did the only logical thing.

We moved to Fairfax Corner.

Within the walls of the House that Lease Built lies a 5-level concrete parking garage. I’m sure I’ve blogged about this before. One can choose to park on the bottom level (so that you can get your mail on the way home), or the level on which your apartment is located (for the quickest access to your neatly-partitioned square footage.) Either way, it’s a gated garage, preventing those who have a hankerin’ for Rio Grande Mexican to score a free space near the cantina of their choice. Yes, only Fairfax Corner residents are let inside the parking dungeon, and spots were always served on first-come basis.

Now spots are served cold, with an icy side of entrepreneurship.

On each level now, up to 12 of the absolute closest parking spots to the exit doors have been knighted with signs that utter a simple word of dismay: RESERVED. Yes, unbeknownst to us, these spots now have a title, and the power that comes with that title is making me use my legs. Like a sucker.

When I signed up to live in this community, parking was deemed to be free and available. (Save the handicapped spots – those are deemed to be nearby and fine-able.) And by the letter of the law, it is true that parking is still free and is still available. There’s more than enough parking through the garage that displacing all cars 12 spots farther away from their apartments won’t have anyone crying no vacancy. But is this a fair thing? What does RESERVED mean, anyway?

RESERVED – adj. – (re-served) – 1. kept or set apart for some particular use or purpose.

Very funny, editor-in-my-head.

No, according to the Leasing Office, they will be offering these RESERVED spots to current tenants for a monthly add-on fee to their rent. While the amount is yet to be disclosed, it guarantees you of parking in a giving spot no matter how hard it’s raining or snowing. (Uh, this is an indoor garage, Condon.) And for those not willing to pay this tax of convenience, you’ll just be a little farther away from home, sweet, home.

Look, Camden, my baby just learned how to crawl. How DARE you MAKE HER CRAWL AN EXTRA TWELVE CAR WIDTHS? What’s that? Carry her? And use my arms like a sucker?

So, people of Camden Fairfax Corner who are reading this (hopefully more than just Katie – when you get a note on your door offering a primo spot at a price – just say NO! If nobody buys the spots, they’ll be forced to revoke the policy and let us park as close as we can to our homes, our families, our world. Don’t give in to unfair convenience. Do it for your bank account! Do it for your conscience.
Do it for my infant’s knees.