Stop me before I send another to De-Friend mode

I'm on a roll.

It happened again.

Granted, this was my fault. A friend sent me a Facebook Group invite for "No Dibs," a group he started. We are both against putting furniture out to lay "dibs" to cleared parking spaces on Chicago streets. We believe it is selfish and un-neighborly. It is also illegal. That is not an opinion; that is Chicago law, that putting private property in the public way is an obstruction.

As a side note, I drove to said friend's home Jan. 16, about 15 minutes before candle-lighting. There was no time to spare in terms of searching for a parking space. His block usually has a number of spots available, even at peak times like late at night or just before shabbos. But on Jan. 16, all the spots were taken--either cars or dibs furniture. I had to park around the corner and drag all my shabbos stuff to his place, even though there were several parking spaces available right in front. Taking furniture off the street and parking there incurs the risk of vandalism to one's vehicle and/or physical attack. What nice neighbors! So not a good idea.

So my friend started a Facebook Group, and in the Group credo or introduction, he used language that wasn't very nice, such as "greedy jerks" to refer to people who to participate in this practice. Now, this would include many of my friends, and with that in mind, I should have suggested to my friend that he reword the introduction to make it "pareve" rather than provocative. Instead, I sent the Group invitation to three dozen people. I guess I should have considered myself lucky that only one person responded in kind, i.e., rather rudely. He wrote on my Facebook Wall--visible to all my Friends--if I didn't like this particular tradition, I should leave the city. He added that if I take his folding chairs from his parking space, "See what you get." That sounded like a physical threat. On top of that, he De-Friended me, which prevented me from writing on his Wall in response. (Clever. I respect him for that move.) I asked him about this series of events and asked him to reconsider his De-Friend action. He responded very nicely and said he regretted the language he used, but stood by his De-Friend move. So we moved the conversation to a civil tone and departed as friends. So to speak. But not Friends.

At least he's not vegetarian. Then he would really be angry. =)