I was on my way to work this morning, walking to the T stop, when traffic on a street I walk down was backed up. It’s just a side street through a residential area, but a lot of people use it as a connection between Commonwealth Ave and Beacon St. Normally there is no traffic on it. As I got closer some people seemed to be a bit agitated, yelling out of the car at a car that was double parked.
A woman had pulled along side another car and was giving her a jump start. There was an open parking space next to her car as well as one in front of the car being jumped. The guy in mini-van behind the double parked car was just fuming and the fellow from the car behind him was actually out of his car, yelling at the two women. By the time I was near enough to hear he was threatening to call the cops. I looked at the available space and I swore that there was enough space for the mini-van to pass. When asked if he had tried, the mini-van drive gave no response.
Deciding to intervene. I told the irate car driver to calm down and that I was going to have the one woman pull around, so everyone could pass. As we got the cars shut down and cables unhooked (the two woman had hooked the two batteries together directly, very unsafe), the guy in the van decided to pull around. He’d been stuck there for 5 minutes fuming. While I was hooking things up again I had to wave three other cars by, people just needed to be reassured that there was enough space to pass. “Rush, rush. Got to get to work.”
I give the women the run down on what to do. “Drive it around for at least 30 minutes before you shut it off …” They thank me for my help and one woman kindly informs me that my fly was down.
