Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

They Paved Parking Lot...and Now It's A Paradise

The parking lot resurfacing is finally done. I've been parking on the street now for two and a half weeks. Some mornings, I can't find my car. I have to walk all the way around the block from 46th to Clares Street to...the other street on the other side...all the way around.

One morning, I came out to the street and two cars had bumpered me in by inches! One of them was actually touching me. Neither car had been there when I parked the night before - there had been two other cars there, and I left them both ample room. Actually, that brings up the one enjoyable thing to come out of this street-parking ordeal; a pleasant and unexpected discovery: my parallel-parking skills have become almost extrasensory! At some point during the years that have passed since I botched that portion of my driver's test, I have developed an uncanny-like sense of where to stop, when to cut the wheel, how to angle back - bang! I nail it every time perfect. It's intense.

Anyway, I stood looking at my car, ziplocked into its space by these two fellows. I was stunned to realize that I had absolutely no idea what to do in that situation (I wonder how many other situations there are like this? I need to give it some more thought at a later time). It was about the time of morning when a lot of cars on the street were clearing out, people leaving for work - but no sign of these cars' owners. Neither vehicle had left a helpful note with a phone number to call. I walked back to my house and called work to let them know I was running late. Luckily, one of the cars was gone when I got back.

The next evening as I drove along looking for a spot, I passed that same section of street. There was a wide bluish sparkle of auto glass, right around where the front car had been parked. I think he must have pulled the same trick on someone else, who unlike me knew what to do in that situation.

Thank God that's all over now! The new lot is beautiful. A flawless stretch of thick deep-black, with straight white lines marking out the spaces in orderly fashion. No buckled humps of cracked asphalt where the tree roots got pushy. No judgment calls to make as far as where one spot ends and the next begins. My parking lot is so beautiful, I want to spread out a blanket and have a picnic there.

Maybe I will.

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