I live on a hill. In every direction the paths slip to ground that is lower than where I live. Low enough that people have to exert some effort when walking from the lower ground to the higher ground where I live. That’s the definition of a hill. If the paths slip quickly like the arc of a giraffes neck or if they have a more gradual slip but it trundles on like an escalator stuck on loop, that’s a mountain. Some hills are quick but stop so abruptly that a cough travels farther. Those ones are bumps. The hill I live on is not a bump and nor is it a mountain. It’s a hill.

If you drove up the hill on a clear day you’d see that the paths and roads are speckled with signs. From afar it makes my hill look like the whiskered chin of an old man hanging from his legs. Maybe someone tied his feet to the sky to teach him a lesson. I guess they then also loaded dirt on the rest of his face but left his chin uncovered. Holes dug too shallow seems to be a global pandemic. Wherever I go I see top roots drying in the sun, mounds desperately holding down the items they hide, or fence posts hopping up and down like a stack of pencils in a pot. Parking isn’t free on this hill. That’s what the signs are there for, or at least what some of them are for. Fourteen different counties stake claim to fourteen parts of my hill, that’s why no one can agree on who and what can park when and where. For example. On Chester Street, which is the road that shoots directly off north from my house and screams down the steepest side of the hill, there is a bright reading parking sign that reads: “No Parking.” Those who choose not to stop at this sign and read the fine print miss out. Slapped on the bottom of the sign is a sticker that reads: “Except on Sundays and holidays.” Ah. This sticker is the top sticker layer of a sticker cake that extrudes from the sign. I’ve never bothered finding out what the exceptions before this one were, and who knows what future sticker additions hold.

How about Closter Drive? It seems innocent at first. Driving through we see the hallmark royal blue parking plate with a bold white “P” that sticks its nose up at you as if to say, “Yes, I revel in how I toy with your emotional baggage as you pathetically crawl up and down these roads like a beggar simple change. This ‘P’ I present is fifty-cent coin that has been dangled by a thread in front of you until you get close enough and see that it is actually the washer for a specific brand of toilet basin.” The veteran hunter of parking spots will know to steer clear of blue “P” signs and not to get entangled in the footnotes intended to catch virgin prey. The blue-Ps are not free and you will pay in more than just cash when they’re through with you. Is there any hope for the young driver clopping along Closter Drive and seeking to turn-off their engine for a couple hours? Should they be strong-willed enough to battle through the blue forest, they will come to a minor tundra. The sidewalk here is such that parking signs are non-existant. That is, there is no sidewalk. Instead a great mesh of road lines dance around the edges of the road like a doodled cobweb. A single yellow here, a double yellow leaping from the left, then comes the blue-dotted ones snatching territory only to be usurped by a great orange squiggle that winds to a seeming infinity. Tracing the orange squiggle there appear to be havens – pockets of single-yellow where one could nestle inside safely. But alas, these yelllows are either in a poor state, or have been planted like lazy scarecrows. Either they fade like a weathered book in the sun or they spatter like a two-dimensional grenade exploded inside them, and they leave their victims as bedazzled as their paint job.

It might appear that there are only places to avoid on my hill. That parking is futile and any sensible driver should invest in a good pair of hiking boots and a walking stick and look further afield. But this is not the case. Early arrivals are rewarded with treats that fall in their favor. Take, for example, the parking sign, now named in local folklore as The Jumbled Judicator. It specifies not when you can park, but when you can’t. And when can’t you? Well, September 4th from 2pm to 10pm, September 18th from 10am to 6pm, September 25th from 10am to 8pm, October 16th from 10am to 8pm, November 6th from 10am to 8pm, November 13th from 10am to 8pm, and June 11th All Day. Except by Zone B Permit. Why these dates and times? Where does one obtain a Zone B Permit? Tales of a patchwork booth manned by an old sailor who wears bright pink overalls have circulated. Should you be well-equipped with rare items to bargain, this is where you can find yourself permits of zones A to Z, and letters yet to be given typographical symbols. But I think these are just old myths told to small children to keep the mystical atmosphere of the hill alive.

Documenting the taxonomy of parking laws has been my life’s work. It was the life’s work of my father and his father before him. One day I hope to discover a new species of parking law, perhaps something as big as a sign, but even one as small as a faded road marking would be nothing to be scoff at. For now I’m content with disseminating information to folks less-aware. The roads and paths around these hills are a jungle that many naive travelers, perhaps chocked full of the gusto of youth, have I seen perish. Let this be a warning to those who venture on my hill. The hill that I live on.