Editor's Note: I've lived in Coral Gables (as a renter) for almost five years, and I truly love living here. However, certain aspects of the life I know in the City Beautiful have become real nuisances to me, and it's time to complain.
1. Parking meters now run till 10 p.m. What a bunch of greedy bastards.
2. All the damn furniture stores. They're all the same: over-priced, über-modern crap. One or two stores would be enough; instead we have a ton of the same shit. On. Every. Block.
3. Valet parking. How many more assholes are going to pay for valet parking and at the same time park their own cars? Some cars get moved to a garage, but a lot of the time, the person parks their car at a meter, pays the dumb prick at the stand, and the cars stays right there. How fucked up is this? Also, the practice of hijacking meters for valet purposes is pure bullshit. Besides being unfair to the public at large and a completely useless practice (except for the assholes who can't be bothered to drive an extra block and park their cars at an unmarked meter), the guys who work these stands are unfriendly and reckless.
4. Houston's (and the people who go there -- but that goes without saying)
5. Tarpon Bend (see above)
6. The farmer's market only runs Jan. through March. Wish it were a yearlong thing.
7. The Publix on Le Jeune Rd. and Andalusia. Their product selection keeps diminishing. I love shopping there, but they keep discontinuing food we like to eat.
8. All the assholes that drive across major streets and avenues (particularly Le Jeune Rd.), careening through traffic, blocking the road, and generally endangering everyone's lives. Those residents who showed up at City Hall back in 2003 to protest the DOT's plan to put medians on Le Jeune and restrict crossing points and turns are stupid elitists. They don't want people driving through their streets, but they don't give a fuck if they get slammed by one of these assholes as they crisscross across the avenue. And Gables city officials were weak pussies in caving to these people and making DOT scrap the plans. Sometimes, safety is more important that pleasing snooty rich people.
9. No Joffrey's.
10. Prices at my beloved Gables Diner keep going up, up, up. They have to stop it. Six bucks for a bowl of soup is ridiculous.
