Chicago Tribune Columnist: Dibs Trash Is 'Street Art'

By Prescott Carlson in News on Jan 13, 2012 7:40PM

The first significant Chicago snow accumulation this winter has arrived, and while some were making the best of it, others were shoveling their cars out of their parking spaces and tossing garbage into the street.

But that's OK, writes the Chicago Tribune's John Kass, a.k.a. the self-appointed "Judge Dibs." Kass, a longtime suburbanite and proponent of dibs, calls the act of saving your public parking spot with random crap Chicago's "street art" and the "collective expression of the city's indomitable will."

While Kass may have a point that the broken dining room sets, buckets, and two-by-fours littering Chicago streets may not be any worse than some of Chicago's sanctioned street art, we think that all dibs is a collective expression of is the pettiness and laziness of some of the city's residents. Not to mention that it makes Chicago look both figuratively and literally trashy.

But as much as we despise the practice of dibs, we'll give one dibs-er credit for having the cojones to use a Bathtub Madonna to save their parking spot. A Streets and Sans worker identified as "Charles" told Kass the move was an "evil beauty," saying that nobody would mess with the statue. Charles asks, "Would you move the Virgin Mary or drive over her or toss her in the parkway or steal her?"

So since dibs aren't going anywhere any time soon, we have just one request — can you parking spot savers at least get a little creative? It might even make us break down and one day, like Kass, see the art in it all.