Road or Parking?

What kind of car rager are you? I am of the parking variety. When it comes to driving, as far as Justine is concerned, I am in a perpetual state of Sunday afternoon in the Buick on the way to church while listening (at a reasonable volume) to Louis Armstrong's Disney rendition of What a Wonderful World. However, the moment I enter a parking lot, the Lucky Strikes come out, the hood of the car grows an air intake manifold, and the amount of grease in my hair and teeth grows exponentially.

I was on the way to Vons this afternoon, feeling great, ready for homemade mashed 'taters for supper*, when it occurs to us that we do not have a masher. I hopped into the car to go to the store. It was typical parking hell, in fact, the short distance from our apartment to the market could, on its best days be described as a parking lot in its own right. I found a spot almost immediately. I sat and waited while I watched three differently shaped men load a late model Crown Victoria full of grocery bag pillows. I switched stations at random, as I sat there, quietly judging the varying degrees of competency the three men possessed. The biggest of them was directing the show. The potato-neck one was writing in a small book and bobbing up and down ever so slightly.The third one seemed to expend more effort than was necessary for the task, all the while smiling gleefully, as though Toys R Us and a new Star Wars action figure were on the horizon. Han Solo, put the cart away, traipsed back to the car and unlocked it for the others. It has been long enough now that I have thought to turn the volume of the radio down, for fear that someone might notice that I have been unconsciously enjoying Smooth Jazz. As the spacecraft in front of me begins to ignite its final thruster, I notice a car backing out several spots further down. At this point there are three or four cars waiting behind me, so as a nice gesture, I speed forth and zip into the spot that has just reveal itself. Unfortunately I was not the only one to see it. In fact, two guys in a Jeep begin blaring horns and cuss words at me.



"HOOOOOOONNNNKKKKK! HHHHHOOOOOONKK HOOONKK!!"

"Hey asshole! We were waiting for that spot for 20 minutes!"



The looks on their faces, the fact that they were both more muscular and more tan than I will ever be, and the fact that I was feeling guilty as hell made me follow through with it. As I am getting out of the car, thinking to myself, am I really so bold as to just park here? Yes, yes I am, I reaffirm. I walked away from the car in combined states of What the hell just happened and What? I didn't do anything. Fuck off And now, to tell the truth, I wasn't feeling enraged, pissed or vengeful. If anything it was a perfect example of the victimless crime; all I was guilty of was sheer stupidity. I stood around in the lot for a moment worried that some kind of attack would be perpetrated against the car. Nothing happened. I went into Vons, bought a masher, drove to the video store, and then home. I sit thinking about it for a minute.



*Supper I don't often hear this anymore. Is it still cool to say or is dinner better?