Bah humbug

So the thing with living in the Plateau is that parking is a pain in the ass.

Most people that have cars park on the street with a street permit and have to move their cars every few days.
It's become part of our routine.

So Monday afternoon around 1:00 pm I went to Waverly street (one street away from us) to move the car and moved it to an area where parking is prohibited on Mondays and Thursdays 9:30am- 11:30 am. Fine.

Fast forward to Thursday morning when I go out at 9:00 am to go move our car to the other side of the street. Lo and behold my car is surrounded by trucks and various heavy equipment and a small crew of guys working on a 1 m x 1m portion of the sidewalk right next to our car. Crud. Construction foreman comes up to me and berates me in French. (I can only really tell he's berating me by his facial expression and not through any real understanding of the French that is pouring out of his mouth.)

This seems to happen once every year where they come and put up a temporary "no parking sign" AFTER I've parked and locked myself in at home. Apparently I need to get out of the house more. Every year, 52 bucks poorer, I swear to get rid the car that we only use to hustle back and forth from one side of the street to the other. Last year they towed our car and left it on a street 10 blocks away. Another interesting Montreal phenomenon- they don't tow you to a lot- they just find an empty spot somewhere in your neighbourhood and move it there for you.

ps. I just read in the paper that street permits are doubling in price as are parking meter prices. I'm thinking of moving to Ontario.