The great parking adventure

So I parallel parked last week. Successfully.

This is notable because it’s the first time I’ve done so since passing my license test in 1998. I wasn’t prepared for the sense of pride and elation I felt – but that all came crashing down when I realized the last time I did this, I had a full head of hair and knew how to dance the Macarena. The next time I parallel park, pandas will be extinct, and computers will be the size of Honey Nut Cheerios.

Like a lot of people, I tend not to parallel park – or even attempt to – unless it’s absolutely necessary. Mostly, this isn’t a problem. York County, Maine, after all, is not exactly a metropolis teeming with traffic congestion, nor does it lack its share of spacious parking lots, where a paranoid parker can find himself a nice far-away corner with nary a vehicle in sight. Anyone with a willing pair of legs can park their butt a little father away from their destination and avoid altogether the hassle of the pull-up, the wheel-turn, the angling in, and in my case, the senseless murder of squirrels.

Sometimes, though, it’s unavoidable. I’ll use downtown Biddeford as an example, because it’s the traffic-clogged exception that proves the rule: A narrow, claustrophobic corridor of multi-story buildings, about half of them tattoo parlors. Let’s say you wanted to drop by McArthur Public Library to see if they have that new Emeril cookbook with the recipe for butter-basted South American turducken. Now, McArthur has a lot of amenities – a huge book selection, a newly-built reading area, and plenty of places to plug in a laptop, in case you want to whittle away an afternoon scouring eBay for autographed Englebert Humperdinck records. But one thing the library doesn’t have is a parking area. It’s on-street parking, or no turducken. Those are your choices.

Okay. So you’re driving west along Main Street, and as you begin your approach toward McArthur’s stone arches, you scan the roadside for open spaces – always a crapshoot in Biddeford, where traffic patterns are as unpredictable as a meth addict’s mood swings. Right in front of the building, you spot an open space (eureka!), only to notice it’s sandwiched between a soccer mom’s minivan and an SUV the size of a small dinosaur. It’s parallel park or bust.

I’m aware there’s a contingent of drivers who would have no problem with this. Their skills are honed. Maybe they hail from a big city, or perhaps even a smallish city like Portland, that labyrinth of one-way streets and myriad metered parking. Perhaps they parallel park, even if they don’t strictly have to, just to keep their skills up, the way a pacifist karate master will still practice the high-kick. Or maybe they simply possess motor skills (no pun intended) and know they can pull off such a maneuver without destroying multiple two-ton hunks of metal. I call these people “jerks,” because I’m petty and jealous.

Obviously, I am not one of these drivers. I pull up to this intimidating scenario and think two things: 1) I wonder if I should park in a residential area and walk a quarter mile to the library, and 2) Who needs a cookbook when my kitchen is stocked with Raisin Bran and beer?

I don’t know what changed last week. I was driving down Adams Street on my way to Biddeford District Court, and right there in front of the courthouse was a space between two vehicles. Normally I’d pass it up, maybe try to find parking at City Hall or along nearby Main Street. But something in me said, “No. I am tired of being cowed by tricky parking. I’m going to parallel park like no one’s ever parallel parked. Mayor Casavant will walk over and shake my hand and give me a key to the city. Fireworks will ignite the sky, and the artists of Riverdance will stream out of the courthouse and perform a routine choreographed to Wild Cherry’s ‘Play That Funky Music.’”

Then it began: Pull-up, wheel-turn, angle-in, and boom. Like I’d been doing it my whole life.

It would probably be wise to chalk it up to blind luck, lest a false confidence set in and lead to the widespread destruction of people’s property. But hey, who knows? Maybe I’ve held the power this whole time, and have just been afraid to let it loose.

All I know for sure is that, tonight, I dine on turducken.