Some Will Win Some Will Lose

Don’t Stop Believin’ is forever ruined for me thanks to that dumbass Meadow Soprano. No one, and I mean no one, is that bad at parallel parking unless they are from Maryland.

Oh don’t cry, Maryland. I googled “state with worst parallel parkers.” After 4 YouTube videos, the 5th match was an article about how Maryland has dropped parallel parking from the driver’s test. So, see? It’s not your fault you suck at parallel parking. In the spirit of “everyone’s a winner,” the entire state just lowered the bar for you.

Anyway, it is no secret that my parallel parking skills and my ability to find ace parking are, well, ace. I inherited both of these parking skills from my dad. Every other weekend we drove from suburban Connecticut into New York City for some nonsense that we all coined, a “Mommy Fun Day.” The neighbors found it odd that we would drive and not take the train. My dad was always confident he would park right in front. And my mom always wanted to go to the Bowery to buy jewelry and it was oddly safer in the late 70’s / early 80’s to drive in New York City if you were coming home with loot.

Although now that I re-think that, it seems weird because I remember being parked on a sketchy street, waiting in the car for my mom who was spending her fun day eyeing a bracelet. Some man and his daughter (I assume) were walking down the sidewalk. The little girl was walking really slow while drinking a McDonald’s soda. The dad turned around and yelled at her for being slow. He snatched the drink from her hand, threw it at our car where it smashed on the window and he beat the girl’s butt. It was something you might call the police for now but back then we looked to our Dad for guidance. He just stared straight ahead and said, “Keep your mouth shut.”

For the record, I would have already been on the phone with the police once he threw a perfectly good fountain soda away because that is the real crime here.

So, parking. For various friends and clients who all remark on my ability to find a spot “right in front” and my knack for squeezing my car into the smallest spots, I started taking pictures of my coups. Don’t be jealous. We all have to be good at something. You can perform a heart transplant, I’m a good parker!

Here’s my car that day I thought, “I’d like to go to the Amazon Store but it’s 2 p.m. on a Saturday and Georgetown is going to be more of a zoo than the zoo.”

Amazon Prime Parking

Amazon Prime Parking

Or that day I said, “Let’s eat dinner at Clyde’s in Georgetown” and Real Estate Dad said, “But, parking.” And then I parked right in front. There’s my car! You can see it through the front door of Clyde’s!

“It’s cold out here Real Estate Mama, can I get a Molotov Cocktail with a match to go?”

“It’s cold out here Real Estate Mama, can I get a Molotov Cocktail with a match to go?”

Or when we went to Arcuri’s and drove because even though we live 3 blocks away, sometimes we’re lazy asses.

Anyone with a remote sense of shame wouldn’t post such a shitty picture, but alas, ‘tis me.

Anyone with a remote sense of shame wouldn’t post such a shitty picture, but alas, ‘tis me.

The other day I had the girls with me and we had to pick up something from the hardware store. There was not a spot in front. But, I was one illegal u-turn on Wisconsin Avenue away from a spot right across the street. I did my magic, and started backing into the spot.

Then I stopped paying attention. That happens sometimes.

And I heard a giant smash.

There was a man on a ladder cleaning the store window. M yelled, “MOM HOW DID YOU NOT SEE THE CAR ON THE CAMERA!” She’s right. I am actually so confident in my parking abilities that I don’t use the camera. Don’t ask. It’s one of my quirks. I can “feel” where all the cars are around me. Except for this day. My feels were off. The guy screamed “WHOA! YOU SMASHED THAT CAR!”

It wasn’t just any car I smashed. It was the top of the line Lexus truck. I mean, if you’re going, you may as well go big.

The guy on the ladder was now the guy off the ladder and I was momentarily distracted by the fact that he was talking out of a hole in his throat. I think. He sounded like a robot. I was mostly hoping the kids didn’t say anything.

We all gathered around the back of my car and the front of the Lexus and I didn’t see any actual damage. The guy is saying that he can’t believe it, he heard a smash, he expected the car to be wrecked. M and Chubs are like, “We can’t wait to tell Daddy!” (Traitors!) Then the owner came out and saw us milling around by her car. I told her “I hit your car when I was parking.”

She said, “Oh I do it all the time!”

I said, “But don’t you want to look? I think I busted your Lindsay Lexus license plate holder.”

She laughed, hopped in the car and took off. Of course then I realized she was actually parked illegally in a loading zone and jumped out to get herself a salad at Sweetgreens.

So I rewrote history* for the kids, and rewrote the future for me where they would tell Real Estate Dad. I said, “See, that’s not a legal parking spot. She shouldn’t have been there. If she parked somewhere legal, Mom wouldn’t have hit her car.” They didn’t figure that one out because duh. Of course if she wasn’t there I wouldn’t have hit her.

*If you need a course in “How to Rewrite History” or “Parallel Parking & the Associated Lab Course: Getting a Spot in Front,” both are taught at my parent’s house.

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