HUMBOLDT PARK — While trying to find a place to park in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, Cindy Bertram, 31, a nanny, briefly had to consider whether a somewhat-shoveled, chair-filled parking spot was dibbed or part of a nearby restaurant’s outdoor dining.
“It was a tough call,” said Bertram, “I was just dropping off a birthday gift for my friend, so I wasn’t going to be long, so if it was dibbed I’d probably be back before someone knifed my tires, but there’s also that coffee shop on the corner and that bakery just down there. I can’t risk pissing off bakers and baristas, we nannies have an alliance with them!”
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Idling her 2013 Toyota Corolla near the spot, Bertram mulled the facts.
“It did have a table, but sometimes people like to be cute when they dib and not just toss out some old folding chairs. Sometimes it’s like an old Christmas tree, or an inflatable couch, or a bunch of pitbulls tied to a nearby tree. But the table did have some snow on it, so maybe it’s the outdoor dinning of that sweet little coffee shop where I call the woman who owns it ‘abuela.’ Not to her face, of course, only in my head. But maybe someone had to leave super early in the morning or late last night because they work the graveyard shift at a regular factory or a regular shift at a graveyard factory and it was still snowing! Maybe if I take this spot I’ll be spitting right into the face of a working class dad who really needs this parking place just like he really needs his job!”
As of press time, Bertram had driven away from the spot after nearly seventeen minutes of stressful pondering to park her car in an abandoned lot, saying she “was better off without it.”
