Welcome to the Thunderdome - or as those who live in Los Angeles know it, any attempt to park on the crowded residential streets after everyone gets home from work.
Parking in Los Angeles is always a tough affair. If it's not complicated street signs setting you up for a ticket, it's the complete lack of space to park in your neighborhood. If you don't have your own parking space, residential streets can turn into a passive aggressive nightmare for commuters who don't get home in time to claim their spot.
On Monday, Twitter user @Mrhflrs spotted two cars battling over an open parking space in Koreatown. The standoff, which lasted a little over an hour, was live-tweeted by @Mrhflrs, showing the two motorists who refused to yeild an inch and give up their precious parking spot.
Meet your competitors: Black and Silver Car.
According to @Mrhflrs, the battle between the Black and Silver Sedans began just before 6:30 p.m. on Monday, with both cars arriving to take the space at the same time.
Neither car appeared willing to give an inch or give up their parking spot, but, in a twist, neither driver appeared willing to get out and confront the other. @Mrhflrs wrote on Twitter that the passive aggressive battle between the two Sedans even resulted in traffic backing up on the busy residential street. Cars trying to get past the two motorists were forced to go into the opposing lanes and drive head-to-head with on-coming traffic.
At one point, a space opened up across the street from where the motorists were sitting in their cars, trying to claim the spot, but neither one appeared willing to give up the space in front of the building. The two competitors were locked in an epic struggle for the prized parking spot, and neither one was willing to give ground.
As @Mrhflrs noted, the competition over the spot appeared to be more about the principle than the actual space.
Unfortunately, because the recording started before the confrontation began, there was no real way to determine who was in the right here. @Mrhflrs wrote that it appeared the black sedan drove past the spot and then tried to reverse into it, but the Silver Sedan was unwilling to give it up and moved in.
(Honestly, it's a lot like that scene from one of the best Seinfeld episodes ever made).
Finally, after more than an hour, an unnamed hero emerges from a nearby apartment complex, and moves the car located in front of the Black Sedan, allowing both people plenty of room to park.
However, despite the resolution to the parking spat, both drivers remained inside their cars. Neither one appeared willing to take the first step to get out. Whether that's because they were still listening to the end of a podcast, or whether they were scared of one another, is unknown at this time.
The hero who documented the entire ordeal left notes on both cars, letting them know they had gone viral. She provided them an email address where they could give both sides of their story. We'll update this story if @Mrhflrs hears back.