We live in a neighborhood where parking is a highly valued commodity,
where people with designated spaces will actually charge money to let
others park there. You can rent a parking space.
We are lucky enough to have one. We have a little space just in front of our house, where we pull in perpendicular to the street, and there are 1-ft high curbs on either side. We don't rent it out or anything, because we, you know, need it, and drive in and out of it fairly often. Unfortunately this means that around 60% of the time, when we come home from wherever it is we went, somebody is double-parked in front of our space.
As someone was today. And pretty much every time, the person who double-parked is not sitting in their car, nor did they leave somebody in the car, nor are they listening for someone honking so they can run out and move their car. I honked several times, knowing it was pointless, while I had a very, very crabby little girl in the back seat who desperately needed to be taken inside and put down for a nap. Nobody came.
And I totally lost my mind. I could have driven up the street and double-parked somewhere in a revenge-against-the-universe-driven outrage, but I didn't do that (I wish now that I had). Instead, I decided to try driving up on the sidewalk and squeezing into my space, figuring I could straighten out after the jerkface finally left. And if somebody tried to give me a ticket, I could explain the nap situation, which should totally justify everything and frankly the officer should just say "Oh, no problem, ma'am, that makes complete sense, no ticket for you, in fact here's lots of money to make up for what you have to go through every day. My hat is off to you."
Anyway. I took Willow in, put her down for her nap, and came out to find that the car was indeed gone. But I was emphatically stuck. I had managed to get one tire into the space, but the other tire was blocked by the curb, and there was a tree between me and the street. I rocked back and forth a bunch, trying to inch my way out, and was at the point where if it was the tree or me, it was going to be me (it's a little tree, very young--I could take it). Only I never made it to the tree, because in my rocking and shifting I had managed to so completely wedge myself in that all I could move was about four inches before one tire or the other hit the curb.
I made such a spectacle of myself that a woman driving by pulled over and came running over to help. She ran back and forth and all around the car and I think I almost hit her (that should teach her) and directed and wedged herself between my porch and the car so I didn't hit the car into the porch, and tried to help me lift the car over the curb which frankly I so wished I could do (Oh My God put a small child under that car so I have the strength to lift it!) A woman walking by with her dogs commented that I looked mighty stuck there, and was I just learning to drive?
I ended up having to drive over the curb with both the back and the front tires but somehow managed to go around the tree and out into the street.
My Good Samaritan's name is Jamie. I have never seen her before. I invited her in for a cup of coffee, but seeing as how she'd been driving somewhere before she pulled over to help me, she declined. I want to send her flowers, or better yet help somebody similarly stupid out of a similar situation, but knowing me I would just get them wedged in worse.
We are lucky enough to have one. We have a little space just in front of our house, where we pull in perpendicular to the street, and there are 1-ft high curbs on either side. We don't rent it out or anything, because we, you know, need it, and drive in and out of it fairly often. Unfortunately this means that around 60% of the time, when we come home from wherever it is we went, somebody is double-parked in front of our space.
As someone was today. And pretty much every time, the person who double-parked is not sitting in their car, nor did they leave somebody in the car, nor are they listening for someone honking so they can run out and move their car. I honked several times, knowing it was pointless, while I had a very, very crabby little girl in the back seat who desperately needed to be taken inside and put down for a nap. Nobody came.
And I totally lost my mind. I could have driven up the street and double-parked somewhere in a revenge-against-the-universe-driven outrage, but I didn't do that (I wish now that I had). Instead, I decided to try driving up on the sidewalk and squeezing into my space, figuring I could straighten out after the jerkface finally left. And if somebody tried to give me a ticket, I could explain the nap situation, which should totally justify everything and frankly the officer should just say "Oh, no problem, ma'am, that makes complete sense, no ticket for you, in fact here's lots of money to make up for what you have to go through every day. My hat is off to you."
Anyway. I took Willow in, put her down for her nap, and came out to find that the car was indeed gone. But I was emphatically stuck. I had managed to get one tire into the space, but the other tire was blocked by the curb, and there was a tree between me and the street. I rocked back and forth a bunch, trying to inch my way out, and was at the point where if it was the tree or me, it was going to be me (it's a little tree, very young--I could take it). Only I never made it to the tree, because in my rocking and shifting I had managed to so completely wedge myself in that all I could move was about four inches before one tire or the other hit the curb.
I made such a spectacle of myself that a woman driving by pulled over and came running over to help. She ran back and forth and all around the car and I think I almost hit her (that should teach her) and directed and wedged herself between my porch and the car so I didn't hit the car into the porch, and tried to help me lift the car over the curb which frankly I so wished I could do (Oh My God put a small child under that car so I have the strength to lift it!) A woman walking by with her dogs commented that I looked mighty stuck there, and was I just learning to drive?
I ended up having to drive over the curb with both the back and the front tires but somehow managed to go around the tree and out into the street.
My Good Samaritan's name is Jamie. I have never seen her before. I invited her in for a cup of coffee, but seeing as how she'd been driving somewhere before she pulled over to help me, she declined. I want to send her flowers, or better yet help somebody similarly stupid out of a similar situation, but knowing me I would just get them wedged in worse.
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