62. December 28th, 2010 Picture.

It snowed a lot in Boston over Christmas, 18.2 inches to be exact, and we are still struggling to clean up the mess.  You'd think that we'd have a handle on it by now, but we are still lackluster at doing things, like shoveling, plowing or general labor.  Snow doesn't cripple us, like some other cities across the country, so no one really batted an eye to a blizzard warning over Christmas, or at least I didn't.  I can drive in snow, don't panic about where I'm going to park, and do my best to shovel out my car in a timely fashion.  I apparently, am a rarity in Boston.  I never knew how psychotic people were about snow until I moved to Southie.  And when I say psychotic, I mean P-S-Y-C-O-T-I-C. 


I grew up literally one city over, right across the Charles River.  We got the same amount of snow that Boston did, but we did not lose our minds during a storm.  Cambridge kind of had a tough guy snow mentality when I was growing up, so weird, who would have thought Cambridge would have a tough guy mentality about anything?  When I was in grammar school, they rarely had a snow day.  I would get so mad at Canton because they would always pop right up on the school cancellation list where Cambridge should have been.


So you can imagine my shock (not really shock, I had known about this before since it always made the news after a snow storm, but I had never experienced it first hand), my SHOCK that people saved spaces.  How can you save a spot on a public street?  Did you pay for that spot?  Half the time they don't even SHOVEL it, they just throw an orange cone, chair, trash barrel, saw horse, paint can, lawn jockey, porcelain Elvis head or some other piece of junk into a mounting snow drift and 'claim' it as theirs.  Forever.  

About 2 or 3 winters ago, Mayor Menino decided that he was tired of Southie making up their own rules and sent garbage trucks around the city to pick up all the stuff that was claiming spots and throw it away.  Well, when everyone came home from work that day, it appeared as if spots were stolen, a HUGE no no, and lets just say lots of tires were slashed.  The Mayor never announced he was clearing out the spot savers, so people parked in what they thought were available spots, and people came home to find their spot savers moved and someone parked in 'their space'.  There was one incident 2 winters ago where someone parked in a handicap spot, illegally.  Hey there wasn't a cone!  Free grabs!  Anyway, the poor little old lady parked in the spot directly in front of her handicap spot, moving a cone that was 'saving' it.  She made the news when all 4 tires were slashed on her car.  For real.


Once that disastrous winter was over, Mayor Menino decided to let people keep their space savers for 24 hours.  Because that's logical!  Give people an ambiguous timeframe and then don't enforce it.  That will work out well.  These are all pictures that I took around my apartment of saved spaces.  A casual 3 days after the storm hit.  No big deal!  [End Rant].


On a completely unrelated note, I have a cone in my trunk at all times, and I DO save a spot, hey if you can't beat 'em JOIN 'em!