The late marks accumulated. Three of them over the course of the summer. Oliver started asking me, with the frank analytical concern of a six-year-old who has noticed a pattern, whether we should leave earlier in case of the car. He called it “the car” with a particular flat emphasis, the way you refer to a recurring inconvenience that has become a feature of life.
I had a meeting with my manager, Karen, about lateness. Not a disciplinary meeting, Karen is not that kind of manager, but the kind of meeting where someone who likes you sits you down and asks you to help them understand what’s going on so they can help you sort it out. I explained. Karen was sympathetic and not punitive. But I had to sit in that meeting and explain to my manager that my neighbor’s parking habits were making me late to my job, which was an experience I would prefer not to repeat.
In the third week of June, I started taking photographs.
Not because I had a plan yet. Because I was tired of having nothing, because every conversation with Denise felt like writing in sand, and because I understood by then that if this was ever going to resolve I would need to be able to demonstrate what had actually happened.
Ezoic
By the time I had twenty-two photographs, I had also spent an evening reading the council’s guidance on residential parking enforcement twice, and I knew exactly what I was going to do.
The man on the parking enforcement line was professional and unhurried.
I told him the situation clearly and without embellishment. Repeat obstruction of residential driveway access. Twenty-two documented instances. Photographs with timestamps, license plate visible, driveway entrance blocked each time.
“And you’ve made attempts to resolve this directly with the vehicle owner?”
