Life, actually…

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PARALLEL UNIVERSE

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Trundling north on 20th Street this morning, I flick the right-turn signal and prepare to turn right onto Third Avenue.

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But first a word from the traffic-management cosmos.

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I idle at the intersection while passing traffic bounces and hobbles over yellow-and-black speed bumps.

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Somewhere a vehicle service department chieftain is rubbing hands together in glee, anticipating the sale of one more front-end alignment or tire-balance order.

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When the green light grants permission, I bump and wobble onto Third and head for the bookshop.

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But wait. There’s more.

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Impeding my progress is a red car protruding half into my lane and half into a striped parallel parking space.

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I stop, click the flashers, and prepare to watch the spectacle.

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The red-car driver misjudges her angle and pulls back into the street. Then, backing up to try once again, she attempts to gracefully slide safely into that mythical arena where the car will be six inches from the curb and even-distanced between the cars parked in bookended spaces fore and aft.

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This is the impossible dream of countless drivers.

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Her right rear wheel nudges the curb and climbs halfway up, but her front left-hand fender overlaps the stripes and leaves sparse room for any car—mine, particularly—to pass by.

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The driver opens her door and glances at the asphalt, gauges the markings, tugs on the handle, tries yet again to re-shuffle her position. Cars are lining up behind me.

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Nobody toots a horn, sensing this is not a purposeful impediment, but simply another human trying to master the impossible art of parallel parking.

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In some distant parallel universe, everybody parks perfectly and effortlessly.

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But in this particular universe you can only wonder how anybody anywhere anytime got the brilliant idea that people everywhere would automatically know how to master this procedure.

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After eight more maneuvers, a couple of open-door peeks, the driver gives up and settles for a slightly crooked stance. She’s in a hurry to make an appointment.

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I won’t even go into a description of how she tries and fails to figure out the city’s “app” parking meter system. She finally abandons her vehicle to the predatory rules of a lax bureaucracy and hopes not to be ticketed.

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Meanwhile, I pass by her car and find my own parking space.

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In her honor, I park slightly crooked.

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I pump quarters into a slot, smile and sigh, and begin my workday

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 © Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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