January 4, 2007. New Orleans. This is a true story. It really happened, today and to me, in fact.

I live in a large building with approximately 230 apartments in it, and it has parking for about 300 cars, on ground level underneath the building. The parking spots are delineated with yellow divider lines. For years, my parking-spot neighbor has periodically parked her SUV---not straight and between the lines of her spot, but---crooked and either on or over the line on my side, posing all kinds of problems for me when trying to get in and out of my spot and to remove grocery bags and other packages from my car.

In response to this I began taping a series of ever more irate notes on her driver window whenever this would happen. For a few weeks after each message she would park straight and between her lines, and I even saw her once and thanked her for this. But invariably she would lapse and I would have to leave her a note of escalated wrath. Finally, about a month ago, her SUV was crooked and well over the line on my side. That did it. The gloves were off. I printed out my most caustic note yet, a tirade of abusive vitriol that I hoped would dissolve her in a bath of sulphuric acid, and I went downstairs to leave it on her SUV, but it was gone, and it hasn't been back since (evidently she has another residence elsewhere and only visits her place in my building off and on, as periods of as long as a week or two go by without my seeing her vehicle).

This time, in order to preclude her getting away again without a reprimand for such a severe infraction of the laws of decency, I left the note in my car with a roll of scotch tape for immediate plastering on her window whenever her next offense should take place---even including a few extra copies of the note in case it might come in handy to spread ill will in supermarket and drugstore parking lots as well. The note, in large boldface block capitals, fully covers a whole letter-size page and couldn't possibly be missed on a driver window by anyone getting into a car.

Here's the note (but keep reading after it):

AS CICERO SAID TO CATILINE,

"HOW LONG . . ."

WILL IT TAKE TO GET YOU

TO PARK BETWEEN THE LINES

INSTEAD OF ON AND OVER THE LINE

ON MY SIDE,

CRAMPING MY PARKING SPACE?

LOOK WHERE YOUR WHEELS ARE.

ARE YOU BRAIN-DEAD OR SOMETHING?

WAKE UP AND REALIZE THAT YOU ARE NOT ALL BY YOURSELF IN THIS WORLD. DUHHH.

The pile of unused notes and the scotch tape were still on my back seat when I pulled into the garage of the Magazine Street Whole Foods Market today. There, next to the only available parking space, was a tomato-red BMW convertible parked aslant of the lines with its right rear tire well into the empty space next to it that I was barely able to ease my ('68 Eldorado) behemoth into. Aha(!), what a perfect opportunity to use my note(!), I reflected with delight, and I forthwith plastered it onto the BMW's driver window. I then went inside the store and shopped long enough to have completely forgotten the note by the time I returned to my car. By then the red BMW was gone and I saw that the note I had left on it was now taped onto my driver window. It wasn't until I got up close to it that I saw, handwritten in small cursive script in the space just below the "HOW LONG . . ." line of my note, the following quoted material:

"Do you mean 'Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra.'?"

Ever yours,



Stahl



P.S. Don't forget, this happened in New Orleans, which I have always insisted is the moron capital of the universe. I mean, this is a perfectly accurate Latin quotation of the opening line of Cicero's speech in the Roman Senate 2,070 years ago denouncing Catiline ("How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience?"). Maybe I'm wrong about New Orleans. JBS

This is always a quote that lends itself to a variety of situations.

This summer, we had the start of a local political scandal involving tow member of the Des Moines city council. I was one of those repeatedly showing up at city council meetings to speak for their removal/resignation from office. In one speech, I used/borrowed that line. I was pleasantly surprised to turn on the evening news to find that sound bite with that quote ("How long, Mr. Vlassis and Mr. Brooks, will you abuse our patience? How long will it take for you to do the honorable thing and resign from this council?") led off the headlines. Further, it also made it to the lead in the morning paper the next day.

Behold the continuing power of the Classics!