It began with ten minutes. Roberta would leave her SUV on my driveway while she visited someone across the road. Ten minutes became an hour, then three, then overnight. I asked politely, and she always agreed to stop. She never did. Eventually, I bought a sign: PRIVATE DRIVEWAY — NO PARKING. She parked beside it and told me I was making a big deal out of nothing.
She was right that my driveway sat empty most days. After my husband died, there was only my car. But empty is not the same as available. Roberta never understood that. Then came the morning of my doctor’s appointment, scheduled for 8:15 after weeks of waiting. Her SUV blocked me in. I knocked and called for twenty minutes. She finally appeared that afternoon, shrugged, and said she’d been asleep.
So the following Monday, when she parked there again, I didn’t argue. I poured myself a second coffee and waited. By noon, thirty cars had filled my driveway and the gravel lane behind it. Roberta came outside in her robe, furious. “Move them!” she demanded. I calmly shook my head. “I can’t. Besides, you barely use your car anyway.”
