(1) Okay, so you have to understand a couple of things for this first one.
Number one, it is hot in Arkansas in the summer. I am talking killing hot. A hundred and four here yesterday at six p.m., so hot that when I took the trash out the air felt scary: standing on my driveway felt like standing in an oven.
Second, my university is always short of parking, but this summer even more so, since construction guys are rebuilding everything, not only tearing up parking lots, but parking giant construction trucks and tools everywhere on the lots, as well as roping off the lot you drove merrily down the highway planning to park in. Also, there is very little shaded parking space, but there is some, and getting that shaded space makes a huge difference -- if you can park your car in the shade, then when you emerge from a long day of teaching composition and Jonathon Swift, your car will be relatively cool and your nearly useless ancient car AC will keep you nearly cool all the way home, instead of your car being 135 degrees inside and you having to drive home with the windows down, broiling and cussing in the 104 degree heat, sun beating down on the top of your head, and when I say you here I mean me.
So I get up an hour earlier than I have to most days so I can get to school early enough to get one of the few parking places in the shade. (There are only about six.) Only today when I arrive, what do I find? All of them gone -- and -- and --and! Why are all of them gone? Well, the construction guys have three of them, and I can't really grudge them that. They're actually working all day in the sun while I have my office job with all day air conditioning, so, okay.
BUT! Two of the other spaces? Are taken by this TOOL in a giant white SUV. He has parked his giant SUV across the line of two spaces, so that he can take BOTH SHADED SPACES, so that no one will park too close to his purty SUV and nick his pretty paint job. (Of course he has backed into the parking space, because that is so much safer and more convenient.) Then he has covered all his interior windows with foil sunscreens to protect his seat covers.
I idled by the space a minute. Never have I ever wanted to key anyone's vehicle before. Ever. Ever.
But I took a deep breath, though what Rabbi Hilleh would want me to do, and drove on. Parked my car in the broiling sun, and hiked in.
(2) Did you know MLK Jr. was a Republican? Hey! So was Abraham Lincoln! Maybe we should let Ms. Sparkle know that? Or send her a history book, except, well, she'd have to be able to read, so what's the point?
(3) Flies! Gnats! Crickets! I'm expecting locusts next. It's that season in Arkansas.
(4) Plus, everything is breaking. The AC broke -- I told you about that. Then the stove broke. Now the dishwasher is broken, and the dryer isn't working, and the hard-drive on the kid's computer is down, and the vacuum cleaner died. Some of this stuff the landlords will fix, as soon as they get back from Florida (they're spending a month in Florida), or they say they will fix these things; but lots of them are our problem. Money money money, water water water.
Obviously, the solution is MORE RUM!
1 hour ago
4 comments:
The lack of shaded parking is one of my pet peeves. Who designs these lots that act like baking sheets for car cookies?
I keyed a car once. I went to the store and was sitting in my car assembling my list when another car pulled into the parking spot next to mine. The guy on the passenger side opened his car door and banged it into my car door with enough force that there was no way he was unaware of what he'd done. I was still IN THE CAR. Without even looking, he and his friend walked into the store. I got out, looked at the big ding he'd unapologetically left in my car door, and scraped my key into his paint, just enough to say thanks for the memories. And then I left and went somewhere else to do my shopping. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not sorry either. --L
My sympathies. I hate rude parkers!
Here in Philly it is a nice 78ish. We are leaving today at 4:30 and will fly into Arkansas later this evening and let me tell you, I am not eager to face the heat. Geeze, at least, summer will end soon.
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