I am going to admit something I have never, ever talked about. THANK YOU QUORA. Here goes.
I used to live in an apartment when I was 20 where we had assigned parking spaces. I worked two jobs - one in the day and then one at night. My hours were from 7 AM–3 PM and then from 4 PM to 12 AM. As you can imagine, when I would come home, I would be DEAD TIRED! We had assigned spaces at this particular apartment complex. There was one girl who would ALWAYS park her car over the line and partially in my space, which would block me from parking in my assigned space. When this would happen, I would have to park in the visitor spaces, which were a long distance away from my apartment unit, and then walk back to the building late at night/early in the morning. That community was VERY dark at night and I felt VERY on edge walking alone in the wee hours of the morning back to my apartment from the visitor spots! I was respectful, so even though this went on for almost a month, I didn’t go knock on the girl’s door when I got home because it was such a late hour and I knew she would be sleeping. I knew the girl. She and I were kind of frenemies and I knew her before she moved into the complex. Her best friend liked a guy, but had been afraid to tell him. I met the guy and dated him. Her friend held a grudge, so she did too. Initially, she didn’t realize I lived in that apartment community, but we saw each other after she moved in and we realized that our spaces happened to be side by side. We weren’t cozy with each other, but I didn’t have any issues with her directly.
I finally had enough of her parking over the line, and blocking me from parking in the spot I was paying for, and I decided to talk to her one weekend when I was well-rested and calm. I went to her apartment and asked her REALLY kindly to please park her car only in her space. She already knew I worked multiple jobs and got home late and I explained that the way she parked was causing me to have to walk in the dark from the visitor spots. She laughed me off, but then apologized and agreed to park ONLY in her spot. I stayed completely calm when I talked to her and, after that talk, I thought we had an understanding. I was WRONG!
After that talk, she parked over the line MORE than she had ever done before! I couldn’t believe it! I came home that Monday evening and found that she had parked DIRECTLY in the middle of the two spaces so that she had room on the right AND left side of her car for nothing bigger than a bicycle. I was LIVID! It was 1 AM. I couldn’t believe she did that AFTER I was nice to her, AFTER I explained that I got off late and it was dangerous for me to be walking alone from the visitor spots and and AFTER she knew I worked two jobs and would be TOTALLY TIRED when I got home! This was INTENTIONAL on her part! So this meant WAR!
On that particular night/morning, I had enough! It was action time! After walking from the visitor spot where I parked my car, I went into my apartment and put my stuff down. I grabbed some gloves and a hat and put on different clothes - all black. I stuffed my hair into the hat and went out of my building, down the side of the building and then around it so I could come back into the parking lot without anyone looking out of their windows and seeing me. It was about 3 AM at this point and I was DEAD TIRED, but I was on a mission! I walked all the way around the back of the buildings, stealthily went over to her car and let the air out of ALL her tires! I know! I know! Somebody forgive me! :-) I let the air out of each tire and then I put the caps in the same place right in the center of each tire all the way around the car. I wanted it to be CLEAR that it was no mistake! I walked around the building, came back up the side and went into my unit. In the morning, I came out to go to work. She usually left for work before I did. Her car was still there! LOL…when I came home that night, guess what? She was COMPLETELY parked in her own spot and NOT EVEN the slightest bit over the line. She NEVER parked over into my spot again! EVER!
When I originally wrote this here on Quora, I forgot to mention what my friends told me about her end of the ordeal. Weeks later I was out with some friends and some of our mutual friends ended up talking about someone doing something to her car and how she had to miss work because of the issue. I piped up and said that I hoped the person didn’t damage the tires and they filled me in on what SHE had to go through! LOL! As it turns out, she thought her tires had been SLASHED and ended up CATCHING THE BUS TO GO BUY NEW TIRES! Just to put that into perspective, we lived in a nice community that was NOT in an easy place to get to for non-drivers. There was a “professional’s bus” that ran Monday through Friday from the community straight into the downtown area and another bus that ran every HOUR AND A HALF AND you had to walk quite a distance to even get to that bus stop! It was NOT a very bus friendly area at all! The place she purchased the tires from had a tow truck. After purchasing the new tires, she had to ride BACK to the apartment complex with the tow guy so they could get her car and then go BACK to the shop. Then, they started taking off the tires and checking them and discovered that they weren’t punctured! They ended up refunding the tire money and she had to pay for the tow. My friends told me she had been SUPER pissed! She missed work, she missed a day’s pay from her job because she had used up all of her vacation and sick time (she had gone on a trip earlier in the year and used up her yearly vacation and she had been sick a lot so she only had a few HOURS of vacation & sick time left!), she had to catch a bus - which she hated, she had to pay for tires (even though that money got refunded and she ended up paying for the tow) and she went through all of that only to find that the tires JUST needed air! She HAD a jump box WITH an air pump on it too! They said she just didn’t think to try using that before going through all of that trouble! I should add that she didn’t even think it was me initially! SHE ACTUALLY THOUGHT HER EX BOYFRIEND’S NEW GIRLFRIEND DID IT BECAUSE THEY HAD AN ARGUMENT OVER THE PHONE AND SHE THOUGHT THE NEW GIRLFRIEND WAS JEALOUS OF HER! LOL! I remember sitting there feeling pretty smug about the whole thing! This is one of the few times in my life where I didn’t have ONE SECOND of remorse for doing what I did! NOT EVEN A DROP! I never had a problem out of that girl after that. Honestly, if I had known that doing that would stop her from parking partially in my spot, I would have done it before!
Even though she wasn’t sure who did it, I was told she went through a range of emotions trying to figure out who did it! At one point she thought it was me, then she thought it was her downstairs neighbor (because of some loud music she had been playing), then she thought it was her ex boyfriend, then she thought it was her ex boyfriend’s new girlfriend. When she presented the idea that I did it to our mutual friends, they ALL said that I was WAY too nice to do something like that (LOL)! They also suggested that I’m entirely too sensible to have come to her and ask her to park in her space and then damage her tires (LOLOLOLOLOL)! One of my friends even SAID “She just isn’t a petty person like that!” when talking about me to her (QUADRUPLE LOL)! They told her that she should be ashamed of herself for continuing to park in two spaces after I had asked her not to. She settled on the ex boyfriend’s girlfriend because the ex boyfriend was at work overnight. LOL…it is a sad thing when you have so much negativity around you that you can’t even pinpoint who might have a grudge against you!
I found out later that the community had a remedy for people who did what she did. I just had to call a special number, give them my unit number, tell them a car was in my spot and they would have come and towed her. I didn’t know that. Had I known that, I would have done that, but my method was JUST as effective!
So there you have it! That was my bad-girl story! I got away with it because this was a time when cameras were not as prevalent. Today, I would likely have ended up on YouTube and in jail for doing that! Or maybe NOT jail! I didn’t actually DAMAGE the tires…I would just have ended up embarrassed on some social media site! So there you have it - my old, sweetest revenge story!