Not Bad At All

Few things are known to scare me more than parallel parking. Hate doing it. I will drive around until I can find a space to pull into. Until it becomes apparent that I would need to drive to Timbuktu to find me a spot.

That was me on Tuesday. Trying to find a decent parking space at a hospital that is on a residential street. With all the parking taken up. I was about to despair when low and behold I came upon a spot.

Now, I probably, most likely, could easily have driven into the spot, backed up and forward a time or two and be done. But, I was coming from the doctor’s office, had sobbed in the car, and now was going to parallel park.

One armed. As I was still wearing my sling.

I reversed. I pulled forward. I reversed. I pulled forward. I reversed. I pulled forward. I was done. Then I looked in the passenger side mirror and was still too far from curb. So I reversed and backed up again and then forward pulling in tighter. A little too close to the vehicle in front of me so I backed up. Finally parked. Sweating a little but oh well.

I get out of the car, lock door and hip check it closed. I am walking behind the car when I happen to look into the van that was parked behind me. And the driver was sitting there enjoying his coffee. Which also means that he witnessed my parallel parking job.

As I walked by the passenger side of the van, he looked over and saluted me with his coffee and gave me the best compliment ever:

That is a good job, especially for a one armed bandit.

I smiled at him and said thank you. Little does he know that he helped to make my day better.

Sept. 15/22