Question of the Day: Have You Ever?

Have you ever driven into downtown Chicago to meet a friend for lunch and, when you arrive at the hotel valet parking garage you reserved space in ahead of time on your favorite parking discount app, you don’t actually see the valet at the stand that’s in the circle drive and you wait there in your car for a minute to see if he would eventually appear but he doesn’t and so you glance over at the entrance to the garage itself and think, “Huh, last time I parked in the city, the valet was actually IN the garage so perhaps I need to go in the garage to find him here too” and you drive your car through this tiny little tunnel thingie that’s barely wide enough but you do it anyway because it’s the only way to get access to the garage and then you keep going down and around the tight, tight curve to the garage door, sneaking up as close as you can so the sensors in the concrete will make it open for you, and then when it doesn’t you realize you made a huge error in judgement because you really should have turned your car over to a valet at the stand and not tried to take care of this particular thing on your own, so you call the parking app people to ask them if they can call the hotel valet to get you out of there in case the pavement has those spikes in it, the ones that will pop any tires that back up over them and the guy goes, “Uh yeah I don’t have their number, can you back out?” and you’re all “Thanks for nothing” and since you don’t see any spikes in the pavement when you put the car in reverse and look at your snazzy rear view backup camera and your fancy side mirrors that aim down towards the pavement when the car is going backwards, you try to back up the sort-of steep, tight, tight curve, all the while your sensors are beep-beep-beeping to tell you you’re WAY too close to the wall and you start to panic because now all of a sudden you feel like Austin Powers trying to turn that little cart around and you mess with it for a minute or two because you are normally an AMAZING driver and can parallel park practically with your eyes closed and without the use of your snazzy rear view backup camera: you go forward and back, forward and back, and somehow you are totally messing up when it comes to turning the wheel in the right direction and you start to get very upset and cry a little bit and feel one hundred percent impaired so you finally throw the car into park, set the emergency brake, lock it up and go to the hotel lobby to see if the valet has returned, and he has, and you tell him the whole story and he says “Show me” and then “Um, nobody can get in there with your car there” and you’re all “I KNOW! HELP ME!” and he asks for your keys and then he expertly backs your car up the tight, tight curve and through that tiny little tunnel thingie and back out to the circle drive where he is still smiling at you–in a compassionate way and not a snarky way–as he gives you your claim ticket and tells you to have a nice, relaxing lunch and then when you finally meet up with your friend (late), you say, “You’re not going to believe the pickle I just got myself into” and then you cry a little bit more as you tell her over pizza?

I have.

austin powers

Related: Question of the Day: Got Gas?

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