Yellow curb your enthusiasm

I was trekking to Willkie not long ago to pick up some provisions for the week: microwave burritos, tortilla chips and endangered species chocolate. Y’know, just the essentials.

As I neared the center building, I was treated to a sight with which I have become all too familiar. Someone was parked in the circle drive.

The car did not have its blinkers on. The engine was not idling. It was parked with no one inside right up against the yellow curb.

“The yellow curb is a no-parking zone. Do not park there.” I left this message in a note on the windshield.

I recall another instance from my time working the graveyard shift at a supermarket. One night, a man had parked his car in the tow-away zone right in front of the store while he ran inside to pick up a bottle of bourbon. His bumper bore a sticker for the Fraternal Order of Police, but it was not a police cruiser. I wanted to scream at him, “The yellow curb is a no-parking zone! Do not park there!”

So many other stories just like this litter my mind. It happens so often that I find it hard to muster up the energy to match my righteous indignation.

In Bloomington, especially around campus, it may not seem like a big deal. Most of the buildings here have ample space for emergency vehicles to park. That isn’t the point.

Lately, a reactionary petition has been circulating to have more safety features installed around campus in response to several accidents that have occurred. The same principle applies here as when someone slaps a yellow ribbon bumper sticker on the back of their truck and claims to give a crap about the troops.

It’s easy to sign a paper or throw on a decal, but how many people will actually do something to change the status quo?

About this time last year, I began to work as an emergency medical technician. Though difficult, I managed to adjust to the long hours, bizarre working conditions and whiny patients. But I could never get used to the flippant attitude people would have toward our work.

I can recall more than a handful of incidents in which drivers would not yield to the lights and sirens, or when we could not find a place to park the ambulance near the site of the emergency due to other cars along the yellow curb.

The French author Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote, “Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he’s alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help.”

If we do not help each other when we can, whatever way we can, we prove that statement is true. And that’s not the kind of world I want to live in.

So please, if you care at all about other people, show a little consideration to those who do this work for a living. And remember – the yellow curb is a no-parking zone. Do not park there.