our storied parking spot

Our neighborhood email list is abuzz with the news that multiple seven story apartment buildings are permitted to be built a block and a half west of where we live.  It's been an interesting discussion about environment, neighborhood character, gentrification, equity and the amount of density our neighborhood has been forced to accept.

Mostly we come down in favor of the density, but we're still very grateful to have squeezed in our little parking spot since street parking is about to get very competitive.   Someday we'll have an electric car and a good place to charge it too.   In the meantime, we don't complain about squeezing through bushes as we get out of the car, or having the kids climb through the back seat, entering the car through one door.

For your entertainment here are four bizarre incidents that have taken place in our parking spot.

1. When D was about 5 he awoke to the sound of a woman singing outside his bedroom window.   For security, we designed the ground-floor windows facing the parking spot small and high up, so D wasn't able to see out them, even while standing on the bed.   D spoke to the woman and she seemed untroubled by his little voice and kept rifling through our car, through a window a kid had accidentally left open.   She didn't find anything worth stealing so no harm done and we had a conversation with him about not confronting thieves.
2. Cars do get broken in to a lot and there are some weird people passing through our alley, so one night when we heard a knock on the door at about 11:30 pm, we were worried.   It was the police.   They had been passing by and noticed that our car doors were wide open, so they wondered if our car had been broken in to.   Nope!  In a flurry of unloading, Jack had left the doors open and had actually left his wallet in the cup holder.   In this case, any unsavory characters casing cars on the alley probably assumed the car had already been ransacked.  
3. Sometime in the early pandemic, when life was peculiarly paused, I found a paper bag behind our car, containing the contents of a woman's purse.   There was no wallet, but there was make-up and a glasses case and other odds and ends.  It looked like what a thief would leave behind after taking a wallet and a phone.  I looked through it all and found a receipt for a QFC nearby and I noticed that it had an employee discount applied.   I called the QFC and they found the employee who had recently had her things stolen out of her trunk, instead of her purse, like I thought.   She came and picked up her things and solving a little mystery and doing something kind made me feel good for a few days.
4. Lastly, earlier this summer, Jack returned home at about 9:30 in the morning after dropping D off at some camp and there was a car parked in our spot with a very naked man standing next to it.   He was not in the process of changing clothes, or thankfully any other unsavory activity, but was just standing there.  Jack hesitantly told him that it was our spot and then drove around the block and by the time he got back, thankfully the man and his car had disappeared back in to the streets of Seattle.