Parking Paranoia
Feb. 4th, 2004 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothI got in to work early enough to get a parking space this morning, despite spending 20 minutes brooding over politics and the economy on the couch when I was supposed to be putting on my shoes, and quickly found a good space next to a pillar.
I park next to pillars a lot, because no one else likes to -- they're probably afraid that they'll accidentally scrape up their car against the pillar on the way out, like I have half a dozen times (although not for a few years, and not with this car yet).
Anyway, as I was walking to the elevator, I noticed that I'd parked REALLY REALLY close to the truck in front of me -- my hood was actually partway under his bumper, and while I wasn't touching his truck there (I'd been paying attention, and at the time it had seemed like a good idea to pull up that far), it looked like the front of my car was smack up against his license plate down below.
"Oh well, no sense worrying about it," I told myself, "He wasn't *in* the car, so I don't have to worry about phony whiplash claims or anything." So I went on to do the half hour walk I'm required to take every morning by the evil doctor.
But as I was walking, I kept thinking of horrible scenarios -- what if he tried to get me to pay hundreds of dollars to fix some scratch that I hadn't even put on it? What if the parking police towed my car because it was technically not completely in the space? What if --
So after walking, I went down to my car and pulled it back a foot, so that it was completely in one space. And discovered in the process that, yes, the reason I hadn't considered that I might run into his license plate was that I'd been staring at his license plate while pulling up -- it was *above* his bumper. The part of his truck that I thought I might be touching was really part of my car.
So I went up to work with a light step, that weight off my thoughts.
So the moral of the story is, "Don't worry, be paranoid."
I park next to pillars a lot, because no one else likes to -- they're probably afraid that they'll accidentally scrape up their car against the pillar on the way out, like I have half a dozen times (although not for a few years, and not with this car yet).
Anyway, as I was walking to the elevator, I noticed that I'd parked REALLY REALLY close to the truck in front of me -- my hood was actually partway under his bumper, and while I wasn't touching his truck there (I'd been paying attention, and at the time it had seemed like a good idea to pull up that far), it looked like the front of my car was smack up against his license plate down below.
"Oh well, no sense worrying about it," I told myself, "He wasn't *in* the car, so I don't have to worry about phony whiplash claims or anything." So I went on to do the half hour walk I'm required to take every morning by the evil doctor.
But as I was walking, I kept thinking of horrible scenarios -- what if he tried to get me to pay hundreds of dollars to fix some scratch that I hadn't even put on it? What if the parking police towed my car because it was technically not completely in the space? What if --
So after walking, I went down to my car and pulled it back a foot, so that it was completely in one space. And discovered in the process that, yes, the reason I hadn't considered that I might run into his license plate was that I'd been staring at his license plate while pulling up -- it was *above* his bumper. The part of his truck that I thought I might be touching was really part of my car.
So I went up to work with a light step, that weight off my thoughts.
So the moral of the story is, "Don't worry, be paranoid."
