Once the door closed behind him, I sprang into action. I told my wife it was time. She smiled, grabbed her purse, and followed me out the door. We walked down the block to where I had parked my two secret weapons. I tossed her the keys to the teal minivan and I got into the yellow sedan. We drove the two eyesores back to our house. The HOA president had parked parallel to the curb right across my driveway apron, and the public street extended perfectly straight in front of his truck and perfectly straight behind his truck. My wife pulled the teal minivan up to the front of his white truck and she expertly parallel parked it until the rear bumper of the minivan was resting exactly half an inch away from the front bumper of his truck. She turned off the engine, locked the doors, and handed me the keys. I pulled the yellow sedan around to the back of his truck, and I backed up slowly, checking my mirrors constantly, until the front bumper of the sedan was resting exactly half an inch away from the rear bumper of his giant truck. I put it in park, turned off the engine, and locked the doors. We had completely sandwiched his truck. There was less than an inch of clearance on either end. Because of the sheer size and length of his lifted vehicle, there was absolutely no angle for him to turn his wheels and maneuver out. He was completely trapped. Both the minivan and the sedan were parked legally on the public street, and neither of them was blocking my driveway. They were just occupying the curb space immediately adjacent to my driveway. They were legally registered, fully insured, and parked according to all city ordinances.
I then walked up to my front door and checked the angle of my smart doorbell cam. It had a perfect high-definition view of the entire street, the trapped truck, and the two junkers. I adjusted the motion sensor settings so it would record any activity in that zone and sent an alert directly to my phone. We went back inside, grabbed our suitcases, and called our ride to the airport. Our driver arrived, we loaded our bags into the trunk, and we drove away into the night, leaving the trap perfectly set. We were sitting at our departure gate at the airport when my phone burst with a motion alert. I opened the app and watched the live feed. It was glorious. The video showed the HOA president walking out of the community center with two other board members. They were laughing and talking, and then the president looked towards my driveway and stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at the bright teal minivan. He stared at the peeling yellow sedan. He walked up to his truck and realized he was completely boxed in. He kicked the tire of the yellow sedan, and he stomped up my walkway and started pounding on my front door. He pounded for a solid two minutes, demanding that I come out and move my cars. When I didn’t answer, he peered through the front windows. Eventually, he pulled out his cell phone and made a call, and I knew exactly who he was calling.
About 20 minutes later, the same tow truck driver from before pulled up to the scene. The driver got out and looked at the situation. I watched through the camera as the HOA president gestured wildly at my two junkers, clearly ordering the driver to tow them away. The tow truck driver shook his head. He pointed at the street, and then pointed at the license plates. I could hear snatches of the conversation. Basically, the driver was explaining that those cars were parked on a public municipal street, not HOA property, and were not blocking a driveway. He told the president that towing legally parked cars off a public street without police authorization was grand theft auto. The tow truck driver got back in his truck and drove away, leaving the president fuming on the sidewalk. The president immediately dialed his phone again. This time, a police cruiser rolled up a while later. The officer stepped out and listened to the president vent his frustrations. The president pointed at my house, pointed at the cars, and demanded that they be cited and impounded. The officer inspected the teal minivan. He checked the license plate and the registration sticker, and he did the same for the yellow sedan. He walked the perimeter of the vehicles, and it seemed the officer told the HOA president that my cars were not violating any laws. I watched the president stare at his trapped truck for a long time, and eventually he had to call his wife to come pick him up in their other car. He left his beloved expensive truck sitting on the street, wedged between two of the ugliest vehicles in the county.
My wife and I boarded our flight and enjoyed a fantastic vacation. For the next 21 days I received a steady stream of notifications from my doorbell camera. It became our favorite morning activity to drink tea on our hotel balcony and watch the updates. The HOA president was basically forced to drive his wife’s tiny dented hatchback for three entire weeks. Every time he drove past my house, he had to look at his pristine massive truck held hostage by a rusty minivan and a peeling sedan. He couldn’t issue me any fines for the cars because the HOA rules strictly stated they had no jurisdiction over vehicles legally parked on city streets. He was completely powerless. On the day we returned from our trip, our airport ride dropped us off in the afternoon. The cars were exactly where we left them. The white truck was still trapped, covered in a thick layer of dust and pollen. I went inside, unpacked my bags, and it was time to end this standoff. I grabbed the keys to the minivan and the sedan and I moved the minivan down the street. I moved the sedan down the street too. Then I sent an email to the HOA board’s general inbox. I wrote a very direct message stating that I noticed a white truck had been illegally parked blocking my driveway for three weeks already and if it wasn’t moved within the hour, I would be calling a heavy machinery company to drag it into the street so I could access my own garage. A bit later, the president sprinted down the sidewalk. He looked exhausted and furious and he got into his truck, started it up, and tore out of the neighborhood leaving black tire marks on the asphalt.