parking blues

Yesterday I went to help with Lucy's class (success -- I remembered!) and, as always, had trouble finding a place to park, but eventually sucked in my van as much as I could and squeezed between another van and a driveway.  I slowly pulled up as closely as I could, just kissing the bumper in front of me, and my backside overlapped the driveway by about 2 inches.  When I came out of the school 30 minutes later I saw a police car pulling up.  I kind of smiled as I saw the bald and extremely overweight officer try to hoist himself out of his seat for a few minutes.  When he had finally extricated himself he walked directly over to my car and pulled out a little notebook.  I scooped up Phin and ran right over.  "Are you looking at my car?"  I asked in surprise.  "Yes.  These people called the police because you are blocking their driveway."  No.  I wasn't.  They would've had absolutely no trouble getting out of their driveway, if they had even wanted to, which they didn't, they were just being mean.  "And," he added, "you are touching the car in front of you.  Would you want someone doing that to your car?  Would you want someone blocking your driveway?  The people who live along this street HATE when people park in front of their house and the principal has told parents to be more careful about where they park.  Also, the law is that there should be 3 feet between your car and the driveway.  And there are other places to park."  I took a deep breath and said, "I pulled up really slowly so I don't think there was any damage done to the car.  When I arrived there was no other place to park or I would've parked somewhere else."  What I didn't say was, "This is a 90 year old school with no parking lot!  I bet the school was here when they bought their house!  They made a choice about what kinds of traffic patterns, noise, etc. they were willing to accept by buying a house in this neighborhood!  I am being a good citizen by volunteering at the school so often!  Where am I supposed to park?  And no I wouldn't mind if someone parked that close to me because we all just need to work together to fit in the allotted spaces!  I am most certainly not blocking that driveway!  I would NEVER call the police for something so trivial!  I have actually had someone blocking my driveway and I just waited for them to move, but I could have tried to find them, or written a note (gasp!) instead of calling in reinforcements for what so obviously is not an emergency!  I am pregnant!  

I guess he heard that last silent piece of my mind because he looked at me with my belly and my two year old and said he wouldn't give me a ticket this time.  Thanks a lot.  It is discouraging.  Grrrr.