domino effect

parallel street parking...  the car in front of the sole remaining slot i was going to take was protruding through the dividing line...

me to friend:  'why did he occupy that space?  so inconsiderate...'

i'm not good at parallel parking and having a smaller space in which to fit my car definitely didn't make it any easier for me...

ok...  forward, angle, back up, forward, reverse, forward, reverse, whew!  : }

we got off the car...  then i saw that the car in front of the car in front of mine (hehe...  that's right) was also occupying part of the slot for the car behind it...

me:  'oh...  so that's why that car was too far back...'

walking some more, we saw that the car in front of the previous also occupied part of the space supposedly for the car behind it...  it went on down the line up to the very first car in the row...  yup, a long line of cars, all of them except for the last two (the second to the last was mine, ehem!) were parked beyond the dividing line!

and you know why the first one went beyond its space?  someone put this movable hip-high post on the front end of the first slot (to indicate that the slot is reserved?)...  you could

1.  move that thing for your car to fit in the slot

2.  park behind it and occupy part of another slot

3.  skip the slot and park on the next (assuming it's free)

the first driver chose the second...

one man's choice but it had an effect on the rest of us...