But I drive so well!

I've been in denial, but it is time to face the facts.

I can't park for shit.

Image from haphappy.com

I'm not sure when this happened, because I used to be able to park just fine*.

*Except for that one time when I backed into a giant rock wall and dented my shiny new bumper.

I started noticing it at preschool. We park every other space because almost all of us are hauling multiple children out of the back seat. It is kind of an unspoken code. The same unspoken code that makes it okay for the daycare lady in the giant van to park in the handicap spot. She has something like 78 kids in that van. If that's not a handicap, I don't know what is. And spare me your wheelchair lecture. Anyway, every time I would get out of my truck after pulling (diagonally no less) into a space, I would discover that I was almost a foot over to the right.

So I started trying harder to park better.

I still failed every time, yet these times felt worse because I was making a conscious effort.

Image from blog.carhelp.com

Then the real test came.

SPOILER ALERT: Johi fails and feels like a giant asshole.

It was last Thursday, also known as Girl's Night Out. I offered to be DD because I was out of money to spend on booze I'm a responsible adult, so I picked up my home girl Sarah. We entered Old Town, which tends to lack parking, and I immediately saw what appeared to be a very generous parallel parking space. I whipped my big ass truck into it only to discover that it was not a generous as it initially appeared. There was no traffic coming in the two lanes going north, so I pulled forward into the street and prepared to back into the spot properly, just like I learned in Driver's Ed when I was 14, just like I have done A THOUSAND TIMES BEFORE, and put on my turn signal. All of a sudden, there was a douche canoe in a tiny car sitting right up my ass. There was still no one coming and all he had to do was pull around me into the next lane which was EMPTY. Did he do that? NO. Instead, he sat there, jammed up my bumper (the same one with the teeny tiny dent on it from the giant rock wall that I ran into so many years ago) and He Raised Both Hands Up In The Air, as if he was eternally confused as to why I was sitting directly in front of a parallel parking space with my turn signal on and my reverse lights illuminated.

Normally, I would be able to shrug this off, potentially even ever so slightly backing up into him with my giant truck until his choices were clearly: A) Stay put and watch as my bumper strips all the paint and most of the metal from the hood of your car or B) BACK the FUCK UP. But that night, I chose my other coping mechanism. I started sweating profusely and I panicked. Probably because Sarah was sitting in the passenger seat, wheezing for air and crying in that wonderful mix of pain and delight that can only be caused from laughing your ass off at someone. Then I jammed my truck into the space and ended up with one tire up, not just on the curb, but over the curb and onto the grass.

Home run.

Even though Sarah was guffawing so hard that she could hardly breathe, she somehow managed to find her angelic voice with which she told me all about her superior parking abilities.

Then she admitted that she is a horrible driver, which didn't make me feel better because she has picked up my child from preschool on more than one occasion and driven him all over town.

Then I successfully moved my truck to the giant empty lot (screw those threatening tow signs)at Perkin's (and I put it between the lines, like I am supposed to) and I proclaimed, "Well, I'm a great driver, I just suck at parking!"

Except for that time that I hawked a disgusting chest wad out of the window but it instead landed on my arm and I freaked out at my own phlegm there was a bee in my car and I drove my jeep straight into the ditch with a 6 foot drop off. Less than a mile from my parent's house. Then God himself (it would only make sense) drove up in a beat up truck and towed my little jeep back to safety. And I continued into town and ran my errand.....

Oh, and the time that I served to miss an elk and I slid on the ice and drove my Ford Exploder into a fence and the front tires were dangling off a sheer rock face that dropped about 12 feet below solid ground....

Oh yeah.... and the time.... look....THE DEER RAN INTO ME! And it was FINE!

Fuck it. Someone get me a team of angry biting mules and a buckboard.  I'll drive and park that shit where ever they I want.


~~Are there any every day tasks that make you feel like crawling into a hole because of your glaring deficiencies?  Or are you all perfect, like Sarah?