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Avenir · Oct 2, 2004, 02:40 AM

Alright, this issue came up tonight among my roommates. I'm the neutral party, and I'm curious what you all think.

Roommate Brent comes home. It's a football weekend here and so all the public/general parking spaces are filled, Brent is coming home for only an hour, decides that rather than park in overflow lot really far away, he'll park in roommate Joe's spot briefly (Joe pays for a reserved spot, the rest of us don't). Brent assumes that Joe, if he comes home (Joe was out with girlfriend), will see Brent's car and come upstairs.

Brent's car is towed.

Turns out that Joe came home, saw a car in his spot and called it in. Joe parked elsewhere and went with his girlfriend to her apartment, he never came into our apartment. Joe feels really bad about this. Because the four of us have only been living together for a month, Joe (and myself even) don't really know what Brent's car looks like, and it was on honest mistake in Joe's part. It's a white Altima, and there are lots of white sedan's around here.

Brent has to go in after 8am tomorrow morning and pay $75 to get his car back.

Right now, Brent is not expecting Joe to pay anything. If it was me, I probably wouldn't either, but I'm curious, if I was Joe I might want to chip in a little, it was sorta his mistake. But, then it was an accident with no harm intended.

Soooo, after all that, should Joe chip in at all? Should he not feel bad at all? Just curious on your thoughts.

That is all.

dtriska · Oct 2, 2004, 02:47 AM

Joe should do something nice for Brent, but not necessarily pay for or chip in for the towing. Some sort of favour to show goodwill and turn the whole incident into a funny story. For instance, if you guys go out drinking a lot, Joe should pick up the night's tab, or something. At least, as long as the tab's not $200 or something like that.

Just be sure the activity is something Brent enjoys so he has a good time, and any "bad" feelings are melted away.

Avenir · Oct 2, 2004, 02:52 AM

Originally posted by dtriska:
if you guys go out drinking a lot, Joe should pick up the night's tab, or something.

Brilliant!

I benefit as well!

I'll talk to Joe immediately

storer · Oct 2, 2004, 03:20 AM

Are you brent or joe?

Gankdawg · Oct 2, 2004, 05:10 AM

Originally posted by storer:
Are you brent or joe?

Bottom line is that it was Brent's mistake. Period. He took the chance in parking in a reserved spot and got caught.

drive-thru · Oct 2, 2004, 05:59 AM

Originally posted by dtriska:
Joe should do something nice for Brent, but not necessarily pay for or chip in for the towing. Some sort of favour to show goodwill and turn the whole incident into a funny story. For instance, if you guys go out drinking a lot, Joe should pick up the night's tab, or something. At least, as long as the tab's not $200 or something like that.

Just be sure the activity is something Brent enjoys so he has a good time, and any "bad" feelings are melted away.

Agreed. Brent took the chance and got caught, maybe he should have called Joe to ask him first.

Will the Joe & Brent show have weekly installments?

kikkoman · Oct 2, 2004, 07:55 AM

Joe did not make a mistake. Joe should not pay anything. Joe is not obliged to do anything for Brent. Brent screwed up and should bear the full brunt of expenses.

Avenir · Oct 2, 2004, 08:57 AM

Originally posted by storer:
Are you brent or joe?

I'm Ben. There's also Nick in our apartment. As for a weekly show (as someone else asked), no, hopefully nothing else will happen worthy of conversation.

residentEvil · Oct 2, 2004, 09:27 AM

that is some pretty boring roommates then if you don't plan on anything worthy of talking afterwards.

Mastrap · Oct 2, 2004, 09:51 AM

Originally posted by Avenir:
Right now, Brent is not expecting Joe to pay anything.

Indeed.

legacyb4 · Oct 2, 2004, 11:08 AM

Brent, knowingly parking in Joe's spot, should have taken a minute out of his hour to put a quick note up on the window to alert Joe that this was his car and was there for a quick in and out.

Good call on the tab too...

Buckaroo · Oct 2, 2004, 11:21 AM

Joe owes nothing. Brent broke the rules, he should pay 100% for his risky error. Hopefully he'll learn something from this and buy his own parking space instead of paying $75 towing fees and any yard storage fees.

Joe paid for the space to be available at all times, not whenever Brent is lazy.

Xeo · Oct 2, 2004, 02:10 PM

Agreed with the rest. If Joe knew it was his car, then that would be jerky. I mean, he could have left the gf in the car and come up to tell Brent to move his car, but having a friend's car towed isn't right. But, since you say he didn't know it was Brent's car, then Joe did nothing wrong and there really shouldn't be any hard feelings.

ASIMO · Oct 2, 2004, 03:48 PM

Originally posted by Avenir:
I'm B(r)en(t)...

It is telling.

Brent is in the right -- in not expecting anything from Joe.

Avenir · Oct 2, 2004, 06:55 PM

Originally posted by ASIMO:
It is telling.

Brent is in the right -- in not expecting anything from Joe.

haha... true, it seems the same name. I see what you're getting at. In any case though, we are different people, maybe I'll post a pic of the four of us to prove it (of course, that won't really prove anything).

Anyway, we got our asses beat today (football team that is), and so we're all pretty miserable enough as it is, I don't think the two of them are too worried about it anymore.