101 Uses for a Vintage LIMO #6: SHOPPING

The most popular question I get from friends is "How do you PARK that thing?" Well, they say it in a more polite way but that is what I would say. I have to hold myself to keep from laughing when they ask that because I have been "parking impaired" since I was 15 and failed my parallel parking exam. I passed the course only because I promised my instructor I would never parallel park. Clautrophobia, Agoraphopia...parkaphobia...if there was a word for that disease I am sure I have had it for many years. So, actually, owning a LIMO is one big excuse for me never to have to park again. It is a like a dream come true!

"Hey - don't you think we should park closer to the theater? There is one spot there in the street?"

Now, instead of shamefully admiting my parking impairment I can just say with an air of sophistication "Oh, I am sorry, my limousine would never fit in that VERY SMALL parking place."

Now I don't mean to dismiss all those professionals out there whom I am sure can park a limo as if they trained their steering wheel to respond to dog biscuits...I am just saying that I have found the limo a very convenient excuse not to park.

So this is a typical shopping day for me with the limousine:

1. My kids, who have come shopping with me, insist that I drop them at the door. Sofi waits until someone is coming near the car. She won't leave until there is an audience to witness her decent from the limousine. So every shopping trip takes a quarter of an hour more while Sofi waits for her ideal audience. Sunii pretends he doesn't care but he willingly waits with Sofi. Now, the "limo driver" (that's me) gets the fun job of "parking" the car.

2. I drive to the farthest ends of the lot and situate the limo across two parking spaces so far out in the parking lot that I will never have anyone park close to me or even compete for the space. Wow! This is great. I have just eliminated from my life: A. Circling the parking lot looking for a space B. Glaring at someone who just screeched their car in front of me and stole my parking space C. The feeling of defeat you have after circling the lot for 30 minutes, only to park in the next county D. Getting my doors scratched when some other parking impaired person parks so close to me that my cat couldn't fit through the space to open the car door.

3. I hope it is really warm out. I hate walking in the cold. Anyone want to tell me why I purchased a limo in the winter?

4. I walk the two miles from the far lot I have parked in. This is great! I don't have to plan my exercise anymore. I am getting plenty from driving (does that make any sense?)

Other parking situations are a little more complex. Like the time we arrived at PETCO. Really small parking lot. I approach the lot thinking to myself - where in the world am I going to park? How will I turn around? Then I discover that they have an entire empty lot behind the store. So I drive the limo to the curb at the end of the lot in front of the store. Nobody is going to care that I situated the limo near the curb because the place I have stopped in leads to an empty lot that nobody else will use and that I can use to turn around in. Plus, I am a limo, who is going to argue with where I park (he he)?

Then there is the post office - I think every post office is designed for tiny cars to begin with. I had trouble parking even when I owned my tiny Chevy Cavalier. I don't even look for a space. I circle the lot, and stop the limo to the side, a few feet back from the stop sign, with enough space for people to go around me and get out of the lot.

In fact, every store I regularly shop at now has a reserved parking space just for me. It is that space way out in the back lot, that space next to the empty lot out back, the space by the curb, the curb before the exit to the street. For some reason nobody wants these spots at all so every time I arrive my spot is always there.

There is a wonderful sense of reassurance when you leave for your errands in the morning knowing that you have a parking spot waiting for you. Even on Saturday morning when the streets and lots are packed.

Now, I just have to find someone else to drive the limo so I can get dropped off at the door!