Dear Trusted Community Neighbor,
We’ve recently received some complaints about our neighborhood watch program, and would like to address these head on.
Our commitment to the safety of this community is of the utmost importance. Which is why our neighborhood watch program is just a guy holding a plastic bag watching women parallel park.
We believe the best way to fight against crime is through preventative measures. Our Neighborhood Watch Members look for the following two things:
Women parallel parking
That’s it
Every time a woman enters our neighborhood and then attempts to back into a parking spot, we dispatch a man with a plastic bag (full of loose Arizona iced teas) to stare at her so hard she gets the dry sweats.
Crime detection is crime prevention. It’s that simple.
Some community partners have asked us, “Does he need to just stand there saying nothing? He’s clearly making these women nervous. He’s not even saying, ‘Cut the wheel,’ which would be just as annoying, although slightly more helpful.”
But here’s the thing. This man generously donates his time out of a passion for keeping our community safe through only and exclusively watching women parallel park while holding a plastic bag from a 7-Eleven, even though there are no 7-Elevens nearby.
He is a Good Samaritan who drops everything (except his plastic bag) whenever he even senses the wheels of a Toyota Prius (driven by a woman) inching forwards, then backwards, then forwards, then backwards. Just so he can trigger a low-grade panic attack about slightly tapping the Beemer in front of her. Even if it doesn’t leave a scratch. Even though she has plenty of room.
We do this out of love.
We’ve all heard your questions: “How does a woman parallel parking count as crime?” “Doesn’t he have anything better to do with his life than place unnecessary pressure on a woman doing a basic task?” and “Why does he have that bag?”
We understand why this would be confusing, since we’re not reporting anything to the police. We’re just making a woman feel insecure about something she was able to do just fine two seconds before she realized a man was glaring at her through her tinted window, not saying anything, but definitely forming judgments.
Trust us. This is building a safer, crime-free, women-parallel-parking-free neighborhood.
Some of you have tried to present us with statistics, claiming women actually perform worse at parallel parking when they’re being stared at by some random guy holding a plastic bag laden with several dollars worth of $1-only Arizona iced teas, so much so it’s about to break.
Allegedly, women have higher expectations for perfection and society waits for women to fail, so even though she’s just maneuvering a Volkswagen Jetta between two Honda Civics, it triggers a primal nervousness and our man with his hand wrapped around the frayed handle of a plastic bag (wrinkled in a way that suggests it’s been used many times) reinforces how women are given less space to fail.
But we feel it’s important for our crime prevention strategy that he’s there. We’re protecting against the biggest threat to the security of these United States: women drivers.
We hope that this letter has calmed you all down about our program, and would like to leave you with the ABCs of our neighborhood watch.
A – Awareness
B – Bag (Plastic)
C – Car
Remember, our neighborhood watch builds pride and serves as a springboard for our members to make a woman both freak out about loudly hitting the curb with her tires and question the core of her entire competency.
And that’s our commitment to you, the community.
Sincerely,
Steve (the guy with the bag)
