not ok

At my apartment building, there are two parking spaces per unit. Unfortunately my two are next to the parking spaces belonging to guy who lives across the hall. This is unfortunate because the guy who lives across the hall is an idiot. Let's call him Bumble.

Earlier this afternoon, I had been coding data at home. From just outside my open window came the sound of a horn being leaned on. I looked out to see activity in Bumble's parking spaces. Two cars with hoods up, wires running between them. And each sitting in his own car was Bumble and some guy, buddy of Bumble. As the horn continued to blare, Bumble and buddy got out of the cars and stood near the front ends, both looking perplexed and a little embarrassed.

"How long do you think it'll take him to figure out he can stop it by disconnecting the horn?" I asked A____. We debated, given the degree of intelligence and capacity for creative, abstract thought Bumble has shown in the past, we predicted the horn might continue to go off for hours.

Since the "getting some research work done this afternoon" plan was shot until Bumble managed to kill the horn, A____ and I decided to run some errands, get iced coffees, go for a walk around the park downtown. We were out for a few hours. When we got home, the horn was silent. Bumble's car was still sitting there, unmoved, hood open and waiting for more idiocy. Bumble's other parking space was empty. Buddy of Bumble had been traded out for an old geezer with a capped pickup. The pickup's hood was open and now the pickup was wired to the Bumble-mobile. I didn't think to ponder what this meant at the time since I was mostly annoyed about finding a pickup in my parking space.

(Now that I think of it though, what was Bumble trying to accomplish? Did he think that the buddy-wagon wasn't the right TYPE for the Bumble-mobile? Was the electricity coming out of Geezer's car somehow more compatible, or higher grade or something?)

I came into the apartment building looking for Bumble.
"Oh yeah, they parked in your spot," he said in a low and strangely conspiratorial voice. Drawn out vowels, falsely high pitch with falling phrasal tones. It's hard to describe the tone - if you can't get it from this I suspect you'd just have to hear it to understand. It's a tone I associate with teenage girls who are trying to appear (sincerely or not) contrite to one another. I've noticed Bumble uses this voice a lot when he's being a douchebag.

However, I tend to listen to WHAT people say nearly as closely as how they say it.
In response to my repeatedly saying various versions of "I need you to not park in my space/tell your guests not to park in my space" he said:
"I didn't think you'd be home so soon."
"I wasn't outside when they parked."
"They aren't my 'friends'" (this in reply to my having said "Look, I just want you to be sure to tell your friends it's not ok to park in my spot in the future.")
"They're not, like, kids." (said after I restated above, this time amending 'friends' to 'associates')
"I didn't know they parked there."

And finally, "It won't happen again."

He could have saved me the irritation of having to insist on the point by just going straight to "It won't happen again." I didn't even need an apology. Just an assurance that he understood my parking space is not his spill over space. Instead, he kept up with his strangely whiney blather. The overdone reaction-tone but with a pile of nonstop and sometimes contradictory excuses are his hallmark response in this kind of situation. Did I mention the clicking noises? Those "tsk" type sounds. It's very primatey. Overall, the entire effect is one of utter insincerity when you match up the apparently conciliatory purpose this extra-lexical information conveys with the communicative intent provided by the words themselves.

When I encounter this sort of - oh what to call it, disembled argument? Obfuscated negation? - I find myself quite irritated. Practically speaking, it is a discourse practice which seems meant to elicit an acquiescence. Which I refuse to give. I refuse to respond with a femmy "Oh it's OK!" because I think this is ultimately something which can (and does) get interpreted as "Oh go ahead and ignore my boundaries!"

It is not ok. It's ok that someone made a mistake. Sure. But it's not ok for someone to park in my space.

Interactions like this are why some people consider me a mega-huge bitch. I suppose I could work on being less aggro in tone myself. I don't know. Should I make the extra effort of removing the sincere emotion from my voice when I am dealing with a person who is heaping on what is a totally duplicitous affect in an attempt to sugar coat the line of crap they are feeding me?