One of us! One of us!

It’s a small town, okay? One notices things, especially when something that has been one way for six years or more changes.

This is my neighbor’s truck. The neighbor with issues. The truck is parked at his place of employment. Any time we drive down this street Monday through Friday in between 0730 and 1500, the truck is parked in the exact same spot. (Except when he is on vacation, and then the truck is parked in his driveway. In the six years we have lived here, they have never gone away for more than one day.)

As we turned onto this particular street, DW remarked that something drastic had occurred with our neighbor’s truck. The last time she drove this way the truck was parked as you see it above. The tailgate is facing the road. This is such big news that we turned the car around and drove back so I could take this picture.

What would make him change his routine in such a radical fashion? I wonder if the recent paint job, changing from a matte gray to a matte black during his Memorial Day four-day weekend had anything to do with it?

And there was something else… The truck was parked a few feet away from where it is normally parked. Odd indeed. Or maybe not. The place of his employment hires a lot of seasonal employees, and we are fast-approaching that season. Maybe he felt encroached upon and moved the truck further east, or as far as he could tolerate.

I have a story.

A friend of ours used to work at the same place. She is now retired. From all accounts, she was a dedicated, hard-working employee, so much so that at one point she was awarded Employee of the Year. Part of the award recognition was a specially designated parking space for one year’s time. The location of that parking space? You might have guessed that it was right next to the place where the neighbor had been parking since returning from an overseas conflict some thirty-five years ago. Enough said.

It took less than a day for the neighbor to seek out our friend. Ballistic. Our dear friend, being the type of woman frequently found up here in the Great Northwest, took no grief and told him to piss off. He took his complaint upstairs, to no avail and no matter as our friend considered the source and relinquished the perk.

Still, questions remain. Has the sun deteriorated the fabric of the interior from facing in a southerly direction? Or is something else afoot?

And why do I care?