I missed my PT appointment. I knew I had one because I was preparing to leave when the therapist called and asked me where I was. This has happened before so I knew I must be wrong. I sheepishly tried to tell her she was wrong as I rifled through the confirmation emails trying to prove her wrong. But she was, as expected, correct. I threw myself on her mercy and she kindly fit me in for the following day.

I vowed that I was going to be early and make a big show of it. Even talk a little with the office lady, who I generally avoid because she is too chatty, so everyone knows I am here before my appointment and ready for PT. I gloried in my redemption.

I left early the next because the building parking was sparse at best. The office lady even reminded me in her confirmation texts that parking might be difficult and I should plan ahead in order to get one. I did. It was raining. No bother, I brought an umbrella. I drove our compact car because not only was there limited parking spaces, there was also a limited amount of space between the two lines. The lot had a disproportionate number of compact spaces to monster truck spaces. The smaller car also had the added benefit of being easier to maneuver into a tighter space and was older than our other car so it was the car that we preferred getting dinged or scratch as it already suffered from previous wounds. So, I was ready — I left early, drove the best car for limited parking and I had an umbrella for the rain.

Except there was no parking Wait, there was parking but the compact spaces that were left had been truncated by monster trucks using the compact spaces and overlapping into the next parking space. This shrunk the parking space available to me to ridiculously small proportions. People who drive monster trucks, for some reason, have no trouble parking in a compact space. In fact, every space I found, 7 of them to be accurate, but then who’s counting, a monster truck was somewhere in the mix in preventing me from using it. Not to be too hard on monster truck drivers, they were probably in a similar position trying to find the monster truck spaces and since there were none, they finally gave up and said fuck it, I am parking in the compact spaces. Whatever the reason, there simply was enough room for me to comfortably park my car.

Did I panic? No, I cooly appraised my situation and determined that there was a steady flow of cars in the garage. I could see cars moving on all 4 levels of the garage. It was only a matter of time before I would get lucky. I staked my claim at the top of the garage because it was uncovered and it looked like most people, because of the increasing strength of the rain, were trying to find a space in the covered parts of the garage. Hopefully with less competition, I would reap the benefits of my daring decision more quickly.

My calculation about the flow of traffic was badly mistaken. There indeed was a lot of traffic into the parking lot but absolutely none leaving the lot. So as more and more cars entered the lot, the greater the competition for the remaining spaces and the desperation of the drivers looking for those spaces. I began to seriously consider the spaces with overlapped monster trucks. I knew these spaces were tight because I wasn’t the only one passing them up. When I returned to these spaces, they were still available despite a caravan of cars following me.

Occasionally a brave soul would attempt to park in one but they were thwarted due to the maneuvering required to successfully complete the task. The back and forth necessary to know if you could actually had enough space to park also required that at some point you blocked the road to calculate your strategy. This did not endear you to the other drivers. Patiences were tried, tempers flared, horns honked and people gave up trying under the intense pressure to get their car parked quickly.

I began to be concerned about what to do as I was nearing my appointment time. I had to make a decision on — attempt parking in the incredibly tight spaces or try to find a parking space on the street which was further from the building and would require walking through puddles and pouring rain. I opted for maneuvering into a tight spot. I found one that I thought I could manage in a few attempts. I eyeballed the distance between the two trucks and the width of my car and wished I had paid more attention in math class. I did a quick sign of the cross and made my move and and after about 5 minutes of back and forth, a wiggle here, a wiggle there, honking horns, clenched fists, I managed to park.

Getting out of then car became the next challenge. At one point, I thought about exiting through the window but I was worried that my 65 old body didn’t quite have the dexterity of my 19 year old mind. I opted for a door exit. I opened the door and it, of course, tapped my intruding neighbor’s door. I had already decided if the person who as trapped me in my car had the temerity to complain about me dinging their door, I was going to lose it. I didn’t care if the guy was bigger and could beat the shit out of me, this was a cause worth dying for. Also, as there was very little space between my car and the truck that, even if I wanted to, and I wanted to, there wasn’t enough space to do any real damage.

Fortunately for me, the other owner never reared his ugly head. so I sucked in my stomach as much as I could while still getting a few mini-breaths in and, much like parking my car, wiggle here, wiggle there, a back and forth with my body to try and break free of the car. Holding the umbrella became a challenge in that I had to suck in my stomach, hold the umbrella and squeeze through the limited space between the vehicles. It just was impossible, at least for me, to coordinate all three actions at the same time. I opted to give up on the umbrella.

But where to put the umbrella. I couldn’t leave it in the car because the distance would be to great to retrieve it later after I broke free. I couldn’t leave it on the ground because there were puddles everywhere. I decided to leave it on top of the car. This was based on the now unreasonable expectation that I would quickly free myself from my situation which, hardly mattered, because the moment I set it down a gust of wind took the umbrella and flung it into to a large puddle near the entrance of the building.

So now I am trying to squeeze by my car door while getting soaking wet. I did however gained some leverage now that my hands were free so that my pushing and wiggling were now in tandem and I seemed to be making progress towards the end of the door. I prayed that this new force plus gravity might take me over to the other side.

It was touch and go there for a moment and I must confess that I reached a point where I thought I was hopelessly stuck. Fortunately this provided just the adrenaline rush I needed. I thought God damnit, I refuse to be on the 6 and 10 a’clock news as the stupid asshole who got stuck getting out of his car. I sucked in my stomach, stopped breathing completely and rammed my between the doors and somehow managed to get through to the other side. Soaked to the skin, breathing hard but free from my encumbrance. I shuffled as fast as I could, running at my age would only create more problems, sloshed my way to elevators with my tennis shoes squeaking at decibel shattering levels to my PT appointment. But damn I was on time.