Hola! I'm back! Okay, so I never really went anywhere unless you count my own shell. Winter is coming what did you expect?
Tales of the Motor Vehicle Challenged is a new series much like Tales of the Domestically Challenged. It's another way to showcase that I am completely incompetent in performing every day tasks though I do try. I hope in trying that the world will see that I am indeed incapable and they will take the keys or electric mixer from my hand and hire someone to do this stuff for me or just forbid me from doing it by myself. I'm like the child who breaks dishes to show they can't be the dishwasher.
David and I have a perfect and glorious arrangement on Saturdays. He drops me off at the library, where I look at fashion magazines 'til my eyes bleed, and he goes the grocery store to do the bulk of the food buying. When he is finished he swings by, picks me up and we go on home to eat sandwiches. This is because I hate the grocery store. I especially hate going to the grocery store with David. He shops like a drunken food-loving snail and I can't stand it. If I did the bulk of the shopping it would be carried out like a military operation. I'd stalk the aisles screaming, "GO! GO! GO! MOVE! FAN OUT! GET IN & GET OUT ALIVE! TAKE NO PRISONERS UNLESS THEY ARE DELICIOUS!" But this isn't a story about the grocery store parking lot. That expansive, half-empty slab of pot-holes. This is a story about the library parking lot a tiny sliver of hell disguised as heaven.
One Saturday morning David abandoned me to play board games. He messed with the standard Saturday morning operating procedure leaving me angry and to my own devices. I wished he had asked me before he had agreed to go out because I really needed to go to the library. I had books to drop-off, pick-up and they were having a book sale. I thought we could go to the book sale together. Book sales are just about the only activity we can do without one of us bitching. But no; instead he left me and said,"I don't see why you can't go to the library by yourself. You can walk or drive. It's not that far," and then for drama's sake let's assume he slammed the door and sped away laughing. I knew perfectly well why I couldn't go by myself. It looked like it was going to rain any minute which meant no walking because when it rains it pours in Ohio. The library parking lot is small and a pain to maneuver into from the direction we live and I am still in the habit of parking far away from other cars because my parking skills are lacking.
After much pacing, fretting and insane mumbling I took a deep breath and decided to drive to the library. There are at least two larger, emptier parking lots near the library so if I panicked I could drive around the block and use one of these lots. Then I changed my mind and figured it was time to face the small parking lot fear. I successfully pulled into a spot next to a curb on the left and a car on the right. David has told me that if I don't hit anything pulling in then I won't hit anything pulling out so I was confident I'd have no trouble getting out.
I had trouble pulling out of the parking spot. I wasn't afraid I'd hit the curb. I was dangerously close to hitting the car parked next to me. This car belonged to a library employee. Luckily, it wasn't the employee outside helping with a car wash the teen group was hosting. Every time I backed out and then went into drive the front of my car came within inches of the back of the parked car. I must have pulled in and out of the spot a hundred times. I didn't think I could back out much further than I already was afraid that I'd back into the busy, main road. I started to shake out of fear and frustration. I thought about parking and going back into the library and warning the employee that I might hit her car so did she want to come out and move it or just watch me hit it? I felt the tears stinging my eyes and thought "This is it I am going to have to call David and he is going to have to come and back the car out for me." Don't ask me how or what I did but I managed to back out and not hit the car. I swear it was very close though. I don't think you could have slid a envelope between the front of my car and the back of the parked car. I wasn't embarrassed at this point because I was much too upset.
After I pulled into our driveway I called David and screamed at him for leaving me to fend for myself. He said what many of my friends and family have said since hearing about my parking lot adventure "Well, at least you managed to get out without hitting the car." Which is not comforting because I have no idea what I did. I did not succeed in that parking lot because I cannot explain how I got out. I don't think I could do it again if I tried.
That is one of my problems with driving. I know that I want to get from point A to point B but unless it's a straight line I don't understand how to maneuver the car around obstacles. In some situations I don't know how to go from reverse to drive and I still don't know how much space the car takes up or where the wheels are and if they are straight. I know I haven't been driving for long and with practice, as I have been assured, it will get easier. One thing is for sure it will get a whole lot easier when I have accident after accident and they take my license away. Then I won't have to worry about driving at all because it will be against a judge's orders. When David begins to protest about having to drive me around I can say, "Tell it to the judge!" and settle happily into the passenger seat.
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