Down There

There is an element of life in this apartment building that I am not a part of and I do not see that changing terribly soon. On the ground floor there is a parking garage. Our unit is granted two parking spaces, neither of which do I use myself. Not having a car, it's easy to leave those spaces to the two who do. As a consequence, I have very little reason to go down there to the garage. Still, I sometimes wind up passing through.

That is where the garbage is, and I occasionally am the one to bring recycling down there (with the trash just going down the garbage chute). I also sometimes duck through the garage when I see someone lingering around the main entrance that leads through the lobby. Letting in strangers is generally discouraged, and so the easiest thing to do is to take the passive-aggressive path of least resistance. It works.

There's something interesting about the garage to me. It's quiet and typically not terribly busy. It's not exactly drowning in light. I don't know that I would call it scary, but there's a mild sense of foreboding that may be due to the dingy decor more than anything else. Still, I find it kind of appealing in the sense that I like the smell of gasoline. It's not beauty that draws you to everything that you wind up liking, it seems to me.

Lately there has been some intrigue for us down there in the garage. Evidently someone has gotten the idea that they can park in one of our spaces. This conflict is for me what World War Two was for the United States for some time: a fight involving friends that nonetheless was of no direct concern. I don't know that I can do anything like providing weapons and other material support, but I am supplying sympathy and what advice I can think of. Should the conclusion prove interesting, I shall write about it.