Pittsburghers must pray pretty hard. Apparently, the Lord has decided to reward His faithful… Pittsburghers must pray pretty hard. Apparently, the Lord has decided to reward His faithful by depositing orange cones to reserve free and convenient parking. Maybe you respect his chosen folk. Perhaps you’re one of them. To me, the orange cone is the mark of the beast.

I just moved here about two months ago from New York. Parking there is much more problematic than in Oakland, but at least in New York your ability to find a spot is limited only by your aggressiveness and how you interpret “flagrant violation of city ordinance.” In Pittsburgh, a select few have waved the wand of entitlement over themselves and decided they should not be subject to the same inconveniences as others.

My first response to a street cone was amusement. “Silly kids,” I thought. “They must have stolen this and accidentally left it here after they were finished playing.” I was feeling generous that day, and instead of plowing over it and ruining a charming, if simple, child’s toy, I decided to get out of the car and put it on the sidewalk. When I started moving the cone, my passenger yelled something along the lines of, “Sweet mother of God! Are you mad?” What had I done? Disturbed a fragile ecosystem? Unloosed the contents of a biological weapon into the atmosphere?

“You can’t park there … that’s that dude’s spot.” That dude, I learned, was the nameless, faceless hoarder of city property. Even though I was reluctant to give up the perfectly good spot, I drove on and eventually found a metered spot four blocks down.

I was willing to play devil’s advocate for a while. Maybe these spots are for handicapped people, and this is a courtesy, I thought. But since I’ve failed to see the sidewalks of Shadyside populated by one-legged, club-footed individuals, I’ve come to dismiss this explanation. Perhaps, I tried to convince myself, these people pay more taxes. After all, it does seem perfectly reasonable that the government would mail you a beaten cone and window sticker to reserve your spot.

After trying to excuse this behavior, I slackened up on my criteria and merely tried to explain it. My most plausible scenario is this: Perhaps these cones belong to crime bosses and their kin. Maybe it just takes a few weeks of living here to realize that you just don’t f— with the cone-clan.

If this explanation is indeed correct, my apologies to any offended parties. You can keep your cones, no questions asked. But in the more likely event that the cones are taken from the trunks of SUVs when people leave for work in the morning and deposited to reserve a spot, I have this to say: Be prepared, because a little civil disobedience is in order.

I am officially calling on my fellow citizens to protest this minor social nuisance. At first, we can do small things such as remove the cones and place them on top of our cars when we park, leaving little notes that say, “Thanks for the spot, cone-fairy.” I expect some retaliation, and we may have to face the grim prospect of double coneage. But we can up the ante and ride around collecting cones throughout Oakland. We’ll even be nice and leave behind a letter saying “To claim your cone, please report to … ” But I think showing up to collect your cone would take more balls than these kind of people have.

Anyway, drop me an e-mail if you’re interested, or if you can offer a lucid account of why the some people should have door-to-door service at taxpayer expense.

E-mail Jason Castro at [email protected].