Being Nice or Not: Part 1

I am generally a nice person. I smile at people, thank them, hold the doors, park my car so that others can park theirs too. I do not listen to loud music in order not to disturb my neighbors. In short, I treat everyone as I like to be treated.

However some people do deserve to be treated badly. A facebook post of a friend reminded me of a problem that happened may be 10 years ago.

As you know, I live in a gated apartment complex that has 9 buildings, a very nice garden, cameras and security. The only shortcoming is, we do not have enough parking spaces for all, given that some families have more than one car. So, we sometimes need to park on the streets on the perimeter of the complex. There is one emergency gate for emergency vehicles to enter the complex. There is a huge "Do not park" sign along with another that specifically says the gate is for emergency vehicle entrance..

So, one night, I came from work late and parked my car further away from my apartment. As I walked back, I saw a car parked right in front of the emergency gate. I called Security but, they did not know who the owner was. I opened the windshield vipers and closed the mirrors of the said vehicle so that, the owner would know something was wrong. The next day, I saw the car there again but, parked differently so, I knew that it was driven off and parked in that same spot again. I took out a paper from my notepad and left a kind message saying that the very spot he is parked at, is for emergency use and please park elsewhere like the rest of us. 

You would think the problem was solved, right? Well, it wasn't. On Friday night I had gone out with friends and came home around 2 a.m. in the morning after dropping off all my drunk friends (yeah, I am nice like that), only to find the same car in the same place. My note was crushed and tossed not too far from the car. I recognized the paper because I was using a blue notepad those days. I went home, took out a marker and wrote "You asshole! Park here again and see if you can find your windshield wiper and mirrors!" on a few printer papers. Took my packaging tape and went out. I stuck the papers on his windows while using the packaging tape all around the car, twice no less. 

As you might have guessed I never saw the car in that spot again. Not only that, I saw it parked on the opposite side of the apartment complex after that incident for a long time.

Now, I could have chosen to do the last thing I did, the first time. I did not, and I never will because, I am a nice person. I thought, may be the person who parked there did not notice the sign, may be he had some emergency to attend to etc. at first. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Why can't people choose to be kind and nice in general? Why can't they be considerate and civilized? There are things in life, I will never understand.

There has been another incident which I will tell you in tomorrow's post.

Apartment living has different rules and the sanity of the people living in apartment buildings depend on others a lot.