Do you get frustrated when you can’t find a close parking spot on a rainy day? Until you live in a place in the world where there is no parking or very bad tight street parking, it is hard to fully appreciate the parking places that most businesses provide in small-town America. It is one of the forgotten benefits of small-town living.
Before the days of parking sensors, back up cameras, and even autonomous parking vehicles, we lived in a place overseas where you felt lucky to find a tight space to parallel park in on a narrow street. People drove cars with real bumpers that were made to take a gentle tap. The practice was to parallel park by scooting back into the spot until feeling the tap of the car’s bumper from behind, and then move forward until tapping that car’s bumper. So on it went, until you wedged your car in and with only a few inches in front and back.
I was amazed once to find an open parking spot at the end and corner of a street. I could just pull back smoothly and pull out smoothly. I was with a small son and we went in a local shop to get what we needed. On returning to our vehicle, a car had parked illegally and very tightly in front of ours. The owner was nowhere to be found, so we got in ours and began the process of tapping bumpers to wedge our car out. As we were pulling out, the owner of the small little Volkswagen in front of us, must have approached and thought we tapped his car’s bumper too hard.
Sidewalks are used along with streets for parking to create enough space for a vehicle to squeeze down the narrow streets, yet get parking on both sides. Yes, it is common to see people walk on the streets when there isn’t room on sidewalks.
A few blocks away, I noticed him driving behind us and without a friendly face. I thought nothing of it until I saw that he had followed us nearly to our apartment building. I knew it wouldn’t be a good or safe situation to bring him to our home, so I drove on, and he followed on. I decided eventually to drive on to a local police station and he followed angrily right behind us. On arriving to the station, we got out quickly and went in and explained to the police officers what had happened. Moments later the red, angry faced man came charging in. He quickly shifted to being a red, perplexed faced man, to then a red, embarrassed faced man and he walked back out the door. In his haste to get some type of vengeance on me, he did not even realize that he had followed me into a police station.
It would not be the last time that police officers have helped us in quirky situations.
Something similar ever happen to you? Contact me and let me hear your story!
mattsmishaps@gmail.com Matt’s Mishaps, PO BOX 114, Grabill, IN 46741
