CRIMES OF CROOKEDNESS I believe every man and woman considering marriage should first undergo counseling to determine if they are spatially compatible. Specifically, they must be like-minded when it comes to parking philosophies. There are those rigid, anal-retentive individuals – such as my husband – who adamantly insist that vehicles must always be left in perfectly straight lines. There are kinder, gentler souls – like me – who take a more contemplative, less linear approach to auto positioning. Never the two should meet, much less get married. If Id known this many years ago, it would have saved me much marital strife. But I was unaware of the great stock my man put in parking proficiency until wed passed through the sappy initial phase of matrimony that has a level of reality akin to that in professional wrestling. During that sweet time, my husband apparently found my creative car placements rather endearing. But then, as we simultaneously began having children and exercising our right as Americans to own no means of transportation smaller than a tank, our marriage entered the sobering Eyes Wide Open phase. And suddenly, my spouse started to complain. First, he complained that I took up too much space in the garage. I tried to comply with his unreasonable demands by parking as close to the wall on my side as possible. Naturally, when I attempted to back out, I scraped the entire drivers side of my minivan against the wall. So then I parked closer to his truck and, upon reversing, managed to put a pretty little dent in his prized pickup. Not long after that, I found him angrily painting a heavy black stripe down what he claimed was the center of the garage floor. Then he painted another one on the minivan side, several inches from the wall. All you have to do is park between these lines, he told me in the same exasperated tone I had used when house-training our very dense dog. I was offended. But in the interest of family harmony, I again endeavored to conform to his ridiculous passion for proportionality. It wasnt my fault that, for some reason, the back end of my van refused to align itself with the front. I was then ordered to abandon the garage and park only in the driveway. But even there, my van refused to cooperate, continuing to exhibit spatial contortion. This led to an almost nightly exchange between my husband and I that went something like this: You parked crooked. Again. I cant even get into the driveway. Did not. Did so. Did not. Our children came to accept these mature conversations as a routine part of the evening and completely ignored us. Until, that is, one of the kids came down with a serious addiction to Yo Mamma jokes. As any parent of a Yo Mamma-afflicted child knows, almost any word can trigger an outburst. In our case, it was driveway, spit out by one of us with the kind of vitriol evident in the relationship between Rosie ODonnell and Donald Trump. Upon hearing that word, my son would be compelled to shout: Yo Mammas so fat she has to iron her pants in the driveway! Getting no response, hed say it several more times until he unfortunately found himself on the receiving end of a wedgy from his siblings. Id like to say that we came to our boys rescue, but usually my mate and I had already moved outside, where we provided comic relief to the neighbors by continuing to dicker over my alleged crimes of crookedness. Sometimes, my husband would pull out a tape measure or a piece of chalk, striving mightily to convince me of the error of my ways. Id just shake my head and smile serenely, knowing I could win by attrition. And sure enough, he eventually gave up, sighing heavily as he re-parked my vehicle each night and muttering about the differences between Mars and Venus. Good thing theyre not parked close to each other.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 16:24:35 +0000
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