Mini Dangent: Pittsburgh Chairs

“You are an asshole. I have little doubt that karma will find you. Goodluck”

Those were the words, capitalized in red ink on a ripped half of letter size paper. It now rests kissed between the wiper and windshield of a red Chevy Cavalier on Kamin Street, near the corner of Wendover Street, here in Pittsburgh.

I know. So, let me answer your first question: “Why would you write and then put that on someone’s mirror? Don’t tell me you’re one of those motherfuckers that polices motor vehicle activities in your community — like some awkward version of a Brian Posehn bit.”

On any other fine day, in any other state, I would never feel an emotional right to a slice of land, unless I had or was in the process of owning it. But, after living in Pittsburgh for two years, I’ve acquired their concept of public parking in a metropolitan neighborhood: chairs as placeholder.

What of the consideration of other drivers, though, you ask? First off, fuck’em, okay? [Why don’t you listen to the details first, before you go spitting on the blatan?.] Secondly, if there were no snow at all in the previous week, this blog post would not exist to’ve broken my how-long-has-it-been silence. Carly and I spent a, cumulative, 11 hours shoveling the car and 1/10th of the public road during four storms. Today, before leaving to drop Carly off at work, we placed — as we always do, since the snow — a vomit-yellow failure-at-60s-modern-chic chair in the vacant space. When I came back… there it was. I was crushed. I had spent 3 hours driving my friend to pick up her car from the shop, and Cora had been such a great girl the whole ride through a heavy-trafficed weekday evening, and some Chevy owner steals the space right in front of our building’s door.

“God, what a fucking Jew you are, though, Daniel! What with the complaining and all.” Let’s hold that, for a second, can we? Every juxtaposition is circumstantial, and context can change every outcome, right? I couldn’t agree with you more. Now, please sit your ass back down and finish that goddamned can of Sparks Plus, it’s starting to smell on your breath.

Look, if the street I’m writing of was laden with vacant spots not several yards away, again, this email would be moot. I would’ve sucked it up, parked in the one of those spots, and grooled out of my 3-story window so I could see who the motherfucker was. However, this is not the case. As this is a tradition — nay! a guerilla law — many of the spots people shoveled out themselves are, as well, currently being held by chairs. What spaces are still open are covered with 4ft slush mounds.

There is another, more romantic side to this story of mine, though. The vagueness of “chair” is seemingly infinite to Pittsburghers. Once, Carly thought a space was free, but as she backed up to a loud crunch, she discovered the space was, after all, being claimed… by a small laundry basket. Other placeholders seen have been carpeted cat scratchers, cabinet drawers, and even an installation sculpture consisting of a chinese newspaper and brown plastic bag hanging over a butt-less wooden chair (Beuys?). These are hard times, folks, a chair is, sometimes, not enough.

Whether red-Chevy-Cavalier is rejecting or, simply, unaware of the common law; they, nonetheless, had to stop their car, put it in park, get out, move the chair, get back into their car, and then park it. That, if I am correct, is considerable grounds for premeditation. So, dude, if you happen to google the note’s contents and are bored enough to read this post, I’d like to append a quote to that note:

“…there was the Other to be blamed for everything that went wrong, so that one did not feel truly responsible — if there was a temporary shortage of some goods, even if a storm caused great damage, it was ‘their’ fault.”