Yesterday I was reading an article about the phenomenon of "gorillas" and I quickly began to sympathize with the guild. Gentle boys, butlers of urban roads, authentic popular buttons...and more, even zippers I would say. Many people can't even look at this group...for example, kings, ministers and others who have their own official parking attendants. But for the rest of us mortals, and especially in some cities like mine (Seville), this is as common as
traffic lights. What's more, some have been around longer than the Yield sign, so they're like family. In some places there are so many that we no longer know how to distinguish the jurisdiction of each one and in the worst case we end up creating a small business conflict between them.
I personally sympathize more with illegal parkers than legal ones, because the legal ones have a salary and also the red pants with the navy blue jacket are a bit kitsch, but I have to
admit that they don't always catch me in the mood. What's more, sometimes I prefer to go further to park or leave it in double file than to be attended by one of these metropolitan gallants. Then I think about it and say, "how stupid am I, what does an extra euro or less a day mean to me?" ...but it's too late and "Mister Parkman" is running down the street waving his hands and
whistling at a Ford Focus... now he shouts: space, space!... "the man must have space in his pocket to run like that".
Another of the urban legends that must be eradicated is that of "if you don't pay, they will do something to the car" because it is not entirely true. I, for example, am one of those who pay and they always steal from me, demonstrating that this fear or feeling of extortion is irrational and unfounded. We should change it to a feeling of uncertainty or "leap into the void", something like... what will the future hold for me today?...will I find the car the same? Maybe without the radio? Maybe when I come back there are only the hubcaps and the emergency triangles? What if when I get in they have changed the upholstery to tiger skin? Could it be that I find that they have turned the Ibiza into a minivan in which a family of Romanian peasants lives? Anything can happen.
In short, I think that paying the gorilla should be detached from the surveillance service itself and be a more social and solidarity tax than anything else. So it is normal that it gives a little courage, in cities like
ours, to have to pay three times for the same thing, such as: vehicle tax from the city council, parking ticket in the blue zone and small change for the gorilla.
I would propose that we only keep the latter and I don't think that those nice vertical machines that issue you a piece of paper with the time until which you can leave the car, learn to say "good morning, peace
be with you"
David Sergio
