The Joys of Car Ownership, part 1

Ah, internet, hello, and good morning. I've just arrived to work 45 minutes late, after riding the dreaded CTA, which if you refer to earlier posts:

http://sparkithdark.blogspot.com/2009/01/public-transit-and-titties.html

I'm not a great fan of.

That, in addition to a slew of back problems that can only be medically described as God's revenge on me for all my wrongdoings, prompted me, about a year ago, to buy a car.

As I have not, until fairly recently, been actively blogging, I'll have to bring you up to speed, in my new, what I'm sure will be multi-part series:

THE JOYS OF CAR OWNERSHIP

Part One:

So, last night I was at my friend Beau's house, brewing a milk and outmeal stout, flavored with earl grey tea and a hint of vanilla extract. See, that's the best part about brewing beer- I can write a sentence like that, include all the subtleties and flavors, and it still sounds very manly, because we're making beer. If I'd be making an earl grey tea cake with a hint of vanilla extract, let's be honest, would have very gay. But it's not gay! Because its BEER! And Beer is poisonous to gay people, or something, because the two things are somehow culturally antithetical, but, I digress.

I drove there, because we had to go pick up supplies first, and there's no reason why we'd ride the L and play the russian-roulette-of-sitting-in-someone-else's-pee game if we could avoid it.

I parked behind his apartment in one of two parking spaces there, through a short alleyway that, in terms of width, can only be likened to the birth canal of a particularly pious Nun.

There was barely enough room for one car to fit through, and behind it, there were two spaces, one of which was already occupied by a black honda civic. Fine.

I pull in to the spot breathlessly, mere inches from brick on all sides but one, and on that side mere inches from a honda civic that looks quite a bit like a brick, and immediately dread pulling out in reverse.

But, Beau assures me that if it can be done forwards, it can likewise be done backwards. I remember having a similar arguement with a girlfriend about "cowgirl," just on the other side of it, but once again, I digress.

So, we gather our supplies, brew some beer, and good times are generally had. Great.

Now, i arrived at around 7pm, and am attempting to leave around 10:30 or so. I step outside into the brisk night air, feeling as though I've accomplished something, having both brewed some beer and fully enjoyed a previous batch that turned out particularly well, when I see this:

http://www.boatshoes.com/images/0799023large.jpg

That may be an approximation, but that's about what the car looked like that was blocking my means of escape from the Nun-Uterous (utyrous? youtearus?) parking lot.

Fuck.

Uh. Oh.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Now we have a problem. I work 45 minutes away from where I live by car, and have to be there at 8 AM the next morning.

At this point Beau has come out onto the back porch as well, and recognized the problem at hand.

"Ooh," he says, "guess you gotta knock on some doors."

I sit in stunned silence.

"I'll knock with you," he offers graciously, the proceeds indoors to clean the kitchen. He did emerge a few minutes later, and help me knock, I just thought the juxtaposition of "I'll help" then immediately leaving was pretty funny. We also discovered that Beau has not one, but two pretty hot neighbors, so that's pretty good.

Anyway, the knocking proved fruitless. We only knocked on doors with lit windows, Beau not wanting to anger his neighbors, and me not wanting to get shot because we were in Roger's Park. We discovered the aforementioned hot chicks, as well as really pissed off either a small dog or a large rat, could have really gone either way on that one, really, but no one would claim the large shoe blocking my exit. Not even the rat.

Now, internet, I just want to tell you that I decided at that point not to get mad. I'm still not really mad. I mean, to block the exit of two cars as apposed to just, I don't know, finding street parking, would at first glance, seem a bit of a dick move. Normally, this would have garnered a my knee-jerk "FUCK YOU" response, but, shoe car had a couple of things working in its favor.

1) It was late. Finding street parking by the lake after 9pm is about as likely as finding unbiased journalism on Fox.

2) It's not a great area, so if you were to park, you'd have to walk a ways.

3) The plates read "Michigan." which means the owner of the car was from Michigan, and that's hard enough as it is.

4) This is the clincher, really, that validates 1 through 3. The plates looked like this:

http://stores.platedog.com/catalog/2010-01-23-1432-47_thumb.jpg

Which, based on the pictoral on the left, leads me to one of two conclusions:

A) The owner is handicapped, and me, being a giant (unaware, to be fair) asshole, stole their spot late at night in a bad neighborhood, so out of a survival impulse, they parked their car in the love canal so as to avoid the aforementoined issues 1 and 2.

or:

B) The owner of the vehicle has a HUGE butt. Look again:

http://stores.platedog.com/catalog/2010-01-23-1432-47_thumb.jpg

In which case, I'd like to avoid angering them, lest they decide to use it as a weapon against me.


Either way, there's not really a culprit here. Or if there is, it's me, and I was an unwitting one. There were several victims though- Me, again. The black brick car man, who the neighbors say is a dick, and I'm hoping isn't having my car towed as I type. That poor, large-butted person whose spot I stole.

Owning a car is a humbling experience, in that God, if he exists (yes, he. God isn't a woman. Sorry, nothing against women, but in my defense: Periods, childbirth, glass ceilings, breast cancer. If she's a woman, she's a bitch) because God finds ways to constantly remind you that you're just not that special when you have one.

I think it's because owning a car is a luxury, and we wouldn't want us feeling to smug now, would we? And I suppose that's fair enough.

Another example: Whenever you spend more than 40 minutes looking for parking, walking back to your apartment, you will invariably see a closer spot than the one you found.

It sure as hell seemed like that, at least, so I started keeping count. And I can honestly report that the ratio of times I've parked and seen a closer spot to times I've parked total is actually 6/10.

6 out of 10

MORE THAN FUCKING HALF.

That defies some sort of statistical probability, I'm sure.

I think, very good arguement for God, and that he is trying to remind me that the universe does not, in fact, revolve around me, nor does it cater to my wants / needs / hopes and dreams and that I should be lucky to have a parking spot, or really, a car at all.

Now the car is currently sitting behind my friends' apartment. Beau has been in 77 car accidents to date (conservative estimate) so I left the keys with a slightly less accident prone friend and roommate, in hopes I won't return tonight to find a smoking crater where my car had been.

Ah, the Joys of Car Ownership.


##UPDATE##

Because # means important, and four of them means quadrupley so.

So, I rode the dreaded "L" train back to my friends' house, and lo and behold, shoe car was gloriously moved.

I retrieved my key from Neal, another roomie and all-around good guy who happened to be home when I got there, and backed my way out of Nun-birth-canal alley. NBC alley. I like it. Gives the whole peacock thing a couple of levels.

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/blog/nbc-peacock-logo.jpg

Anyway, my car is back in my hands, thank God.