I recall seeing - on two separate 'Season Eight' episodes of the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm - the same unique situation occurred to 'Larry' (Larry David) - when a motorist illegally parked his car over the line in (a lot that had diagonal spaces). This caused 'Larry' to complain to said motorist (about the possibility of causing a 'chain reaction' of additional erroneously parked vehicles).

I mention this scenario, because it reminded me of a similar parking situation that happened to me back in the 1980s, during the holidays...

I was doing some last-minute Christmas shopping at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, New York - taking into account how crowded the parking lot there was going to be there.

Sure enough, the spaces near the mall were all filled to capacity. Outside the parking area was a roadway that circled the entire facility. On the other side of said roadway were additional parking spaces - set in a diagonal configuration that allowed two cars to be parked (one in front of the other). Once again, nearly all of the spaces were taken up with parked vehicles, as I drove around this additional area...

Then, as luck would have it, I saw a diagonal parking space that appears to have just one car occupying it. I saw an empty area behind that one car, so I'd decided to drive all the way to the end of the row, go to the next row, and get to the empty area (before any other motorist gets to it first). As soon as I got to the space on the next row, I saw the same lone car, but there didn't appear to be any room for my car to fit behind it. So, once again, I drove to the other end of this second row, went back to the first row, and returned to the very same diagonal space, where the one car sat there, all by itself...

It had finally dawned on me what had actually transpired. The motorist, in parking his vehicle in the diagonal area, took up two spaces!

Needless to say, I was 'fit to be tied'. But, instead of waiting for the motorist to come back to the wrongly-parked car (so I can lodge a complaint with him/her), I drove my vehicle even further away from the mall, until I found a suitable parking space.

Rather than go to the stores first, I'd returned to the diagonal parking space, and waited for the driver of the two-space-occupying car to come back (so I can have it out with him/her). I stood there for nearly an hour, but the motorist hadn't returned yet. Logically, I thought that he/she was still in the mall (also buying Christmas presents).

Since I'd thought that the longer I'd wait, the less time I'd have to do my own shopping, my next impulse was to simply write a rather profane message and leave it on the windshield of the illegal parker...

But then, I'd thought to myself, "This is Christmas... a time for peace and understanding... and being kind to my fellow human beings (no matter how annoying their habits might be)..."

So, I'd finally decided to leave for the motorist of the wrongly-parked car a short message. It simply read "Merry Xmas"... which I'd lovingly scrawled on the hood of his/her vehicle with my car keys!

(Of course, if 'Larry' did something like this to an illegal parker, you know that he will eventually get into trouble, when someone catches him in the act, and tattles on the motorist - who [in turn] will seek revenge by doing some worse damage to 'Larry''s car.)

"Merry Motoring!"