From a Parallel Dimension

For those who learn to drive in the city, the concept of parallel parking comes as second nature as making a pretzel and hot dog from the corner street vendor your dinner. If you would like to have a vehicle as well as call a urbanized metropolis home, and you’re totally not cool with spending $160 per month to park the car in a garage, parallel parking is the only option. As one of those skills where repetition and practice makes perfect, the more you do it, the better you become.

Another parallel parking haven is the Jersey shore. Because of the lack of driveways in most shoretown hot spots, if you want to get some rays on the beach, you, too will have to become wise in the ways of jamming a vehicle between a Hummer and a hard place. Needless to say as a Jersey native, I can boast a sense of pride in my parallel parking abilities. The Jersey shore is the whammy wild card equalizer in this scenario. It gives suburban white kids from Jersey street cred compared to the city guys, since they can ace parking on said street. That’s right – I’m representin’ the OC.

(The town, not the crappy show. The only thing on Fox I watch is House– that dude is HARSH!)

So you’ve got cityfolk and shorefolk who have got the parallel parking thing down. Unfortunately, very few of said folk are students at George Washington University, located in the heart of Washington, DC. As a nightly commuter into the city, I wish I could say the parking on campus was “ample.” I also wish I could say that these college kids had parallel parking skills that were “not laughable.”

So bad…

Now, earlier I proclaimed perfect parallel parking requires practice (and perhaps a peck of pickled peppers, but I digress.) My first official time occurred at my driver’s test in the far off land of Winslow, New Jersey some 8+ years ago. Now, I’ll admit, I had an unfair advantage, as I tested in the old white Volvo tank that was my first car. That thing was technologically superior to all other vehicles at the time (well, at least the ones with door handles that didn’t break off in your hand.) It could turn on a dime, pick it up, and then cash it in for two quarters and a nickel. Yeah, Swedes know how to manage their money.

Just look at Nordberg.

Anyways, having the easiest parallel car of life as a training vehicle paved my way towards smooth parking long ago. The state of parallel parking today is a travesty. Cars too far from the curb, too close, slanted in, slanted out, on the bumper of the cars nearby – it’s just a mess.

But nothing compares to what I witnessed downtown on my way to class yesterday.

A woman in her thirties, clearly in a hurry, clearly had no patience for traffic. I first heard her when she was about four cars up on my right. She laid into her horn like a tugboat in a thick fog. She had her ire set on the car in front of her, using each staccato blast of her horn as a warning that she’s going to flip out at any second. The light has been green for the last fifteen seconds, and the cars in the two lanes to her left were moving by without any hindrance. To be honest, I think I’d be pretty pissed too, if I were in her position, going nowhere in the far right lane.

That is, if I wasn’t waiting for a parked car to move.