The Reserved Parking Spot

Ben has had the same assigned parking spot at his apartment building for two years. It is number fourteen, right beside the side entrance. For most of that time, it has been reliably his. It sits empty and waiting whenever he gets home from work.

Then, over the course of one month, a small gray car starts appearing in his spot. It happens two or three times a week. Ben never sees the car arrive or leave. He only notices it there when he pulls in after work. It's always gone by the next morning.

He leaves a polite note on the windshield the first time it happens. He asks the driver to please use the guest spots instead. The car appears again three days later anyway, as if the note had never existed.

Frustrated, Ben starts checking the lot earlier each evening, hoping to catch the driver in the act. He never does. The gray car seems to appear and disappear on its own schedule, always avoiding him completely.

Eventually, he mentions the problem to Rhea, the building manager. He expects sympathy more than an actual answer. Instead, Rhea pulls up the building's parking map on her computer and studies it for a moment.

"Ah," she says. "I think I know what's happening. We renumbered the spots last month after the repaving. The old signs are still up in two rows. Someone's probably reading spot fourteen off the old sign, which is now actually spot nine."

Rhea prints new signs that afternoon. She replaces the old ones herself before the lot fills up again. Ben never learns who was driving the gray car, and honestly, he decides he doesn't need to. The mystery wasn't really a person at all, just two sets of numbers disagreeing with each other.

The next evening, spot fourteen is exactly where it should be. It is exactly as empty as it's supposed to be.