Parking Wars: Part 2

By now you are hopfully familiar with Parking Wars Part 1.

My husband has a giant truck. Driving it is fun. But parking? EEEEF NO!

Check out what I did to it back in November (our first week in California, second week of owning the truck):

In case you're wondering, that was "new car meets yellow parking pole". That of course meant that he got to drive up to meet his new unit with a brand new, badass truck that was the envy of everyone...and a story to tell about his wife who can't park.

So before his command even knew me, they knew not to let me near their vehicles.

It also so happens that all the parking lots in California are built for vespa scooters (just about). The spaces are almost insultingly small and packed in like sardines. Our apartment complex has the added "benefit" of also being shaped like this: [ (ok that was a bad example, but basically, you drive in one end and the parking lot goes up, right, right again, and then out. In other words it's tight. Each section has 2 rows of spaces, one on each side with the driving space in between them.

We've been in so many parking fiascos there. My husband tapped the back bumper of our neighbors SUV once. Another time our other neighbor caught me granny parking for 15 minutes and screamed at me from his balcony about "crowding" his vehicle.

At one point my husband almost had a meltdown in the parking lot because he couldn't maneuver into the space. I tried to fix it for him and that resulted in ME having a meltdown because I was stuck between 2 cars and blocked in by the car on the other side of the lot. Finally someone behind us got out of their car and manually guided me into position.

Then I discovered the art of "backing in". I could turn into an empty space across from us as screwy as I wanted to, and then back perfectly into our space. That seemed to work for a few weeks. Our rude parking nazi neighbor even commended me on my "skillz".

And then the inevitable happened. Our apartment manager GAVE AWAY THE EMPTY SPACE. The other day I tried to back into the space but there was a car in the other spot and I couldn't do it. So I pulled back around and tried to pull in frontwards. That didn't work either. So I gave up and parallel parked on the street (you KNOW parking is bad when you opt for parallel street parking).

The other day I tried it again, but once again couldn't maneuver around all the cars without hitting something.

So it was with a stroke of genius that I decided to ask for a new space. At first the manager seemed skeptical that one person could have such horrible parking skills that they required a new space assignment. But after viewing the giant decoration on the side and hearing tales of actual accidents we have caused in said parking lot, so gave me the best parking spot in the ENTIRE lot.

I got the corner spot next to the handicap space. So not only is there no one parked on one side of me, but I can also conveniently drive straight into my spot. I don't even have to turn the steering wheel whatsoever. It's amazing. I go around the parking lot and when I get to the corner, instead of turning I just coast into place.

I exitedly sent my husband an email telling him of our luck.

Next on the to-do list: Fix the car. It's going to cost about $500 and take 3-5 days (blegh). So if anyone wants to loan me a car for a few days (just so I can still go to the gym), that would be great. I promise to always park as far away from everyone else as possible ;)