Blog Love Omega Glee: Parking Lot Pandemonium (27 July 2012)

This morning, Chris, Chris, Donald, Francine, and Jake have all been pressed into service to help Eve and Lilith move books from Apocalypse Books's old location to its new location upstairs at Purgatory. While hefting books down the block, blonde Chris says to Francine, "You're going to help us when we move too, right?"

"Sure," Francine says, "You know how much I love carrying heavy boxes."

Removing the sweat from his eyes by shaking his head, Chris laughs, "Well, at least we'll have some stuff lighter than books. I think books are the heaviest things to move since they are all solid matter and fill up almost every inch of space in a box."

"Seriously though, I'm surprised you haven't moved already with all the crazy stuff that's gone on at that apartment," Francine says, as they cross the street.

"We were planning to, but the landlord said he'd let us go month to month early and dropped the rent quite a bit, so we decided to stay a bit longer. I think he's scared to lose any more tenants. Strangely enough, that damn parking lot is always full still though."

"What do you mean?"

"For a big apartment building, we only have a tiny parking lot, so they charge to have a space. We have one for Chris but I refuse to pay for two so I always park on the street, though that's always a hassle since I can only park on the Cleaveland side since the Believer Heights side of the neighborhood doesn't allow overnight parking. I used to be able to park in the bank lot next door afterhours, but they put a flyer on my window one morning saying they were no longer allowing complimentary parking for the apartment building. I asked the apartment manager about it but she said she didn't know what was going on and every time I've asked her about it since, she just tells me that they're working on it. Best I can figure is that the landlord used to pay the bank something to let us park there and then stopped paying, probably because there were less tenants so he wasn't making enough money for his greedy self and just cut expenses wherever he could."

Francine and Chris climb the stairs to Purgatory, and Chris continues, "So now I think people just use the apartment building lot, so even though we're supposed to have a designated space, often someone else is in it. We call the apartment manager to complain but she never does anything about it. So then we take someone else's space and a big fight always ensues. This one old black lady who lives downstairs has gotten to slashing the tires of anyone who parks in her space, so the people in the know leave her space alone. We've thought about slashing some tires as well, but decided against it, in case the person whose car tires we slash has a gun. Grandma apparently doesn't care about that. She probably packs heat herself. One day she nearly got in a fistfight with Chris when Chris crossed the line a bit into her space because another neighbor used to park his S.U.V. sideways and took up two and a half spaces. He stopped doing that though when the stripper--I think her stage name is Zorra and she uses a bullwhip in her act--who lives upstairs told him that her strip club was owned by the mob and she was going to have them plant a car bomb in it one day."

Chris pauses as they reach the second floor and set the boxes down, "Come to think of it, that guy and his S.U.V. disappeared soon after that. We assumed he moved out, but we never saw him move. Maybe the stripper had him whacked for his parking spot."

"And you still live in that place?"

"Yeah, I hate it, but that rent is hard to beat."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.