A mortifying lesson, but still a lesson

Let me set the scene by explaining that my university, UCCS, sells more parking permits than there are parking spots on campus--by a lot. So for those with classes that begin later than 8 am, cruising around and around the lots is inevitable. Couple that with minimum $30 parking violation tickets and you can imagine how tense it is to find parking at 10:30 in the morning.

This term I have a morning class at the Rec Center, which is about a half mile straight uphill from the rest of the campus. So I take part in the great central campus parking spot search every Tuesday and Thursday. Compounding my problem are the dimensions and turn radius of my very full size pickup. I am simply not fast enough or nimble enough to race for a spot being vacated in any of the open air lots. I am stuck carefully winding my way up past oblivious students, visitors and carelessly parked vehicles to the fourth level of the very tight parking structure, where the least desireable spots have not yet filled by midmorning.

All was well this morning when I parked. However when I returned to my pickup at 3 pm and started slowly winding my way down the parking levels I came to a corner where two fullsize pickups were parked tail to tail, leaving a hole for vehicles to get through that was just not wide enough for my pickup to turn into. I was stuck. There was a line of at least ten vehicles behind me, also trying to leave the parking structure. There were no parking police in sight. After two attempts at sawing back and forth to get to an angle that would permit me to fit, I finally rolled down my window and called to the SUV behind me that I couldn't fit through. I was picturing all these cars having to back up a crowding spiral ramp to let me back up out of their way. It was not a happy moment.

Now, as an aside, let me point out that I drove an ambulance in NYC for over ten years. I have taken large vehicles down sidewalks, through construction zones and sometime backwards uphill into busy ambulance bays at hospitals--often at high speeds. I know how to drive and I know the dimensions of my vehicle. I am not a girl in that way.

But here I was facing an insurmountable task, with all the guys in their little tuners honking at me from way up the line. Just then an old lady--I mean a really old lady, like old enough to be my grandmother--got out of her SUV and came to the front of my pickup to guide me through. She was so tiny and slow I was scared I would pin her and crush her. She waved her hands like a little bird, totally useless in terms of signalling whether I needed to go left or right or stop. I actually rubbed the bumper of one pickup once with my driver side door. But, she did it. She stayed calm (serene actually) through the long seconds and minutes of my repositioning back and forth to gain the right angle and then I saw in her eyes that I could make it. I made eye contact with her and got the go-ahead. Yes! I squeezed through, just barely. I thanked the lady wholeheartedly and got down the ramp as quickly as I could. Driving out of the parking structure, I wondered what I had just experienced.

Yes there was embarrassment and panic and grim determination with a cold metallic lump in my throat. But what struck me most was that my rescuer was not one of the young male pickup drivers behind me. They were content to sit on their asses in their air conditioned trucks and just honk at me. It was an ancient crone who was wiser than any of us and fixed the situation for us all. I have no idea why she did that. I have no idea why she was even up there in campus permit parking. I have no idea why I assumed she couldn't help me. But I came face to face with assumptions about what I could do and what she couldn't do and I was wrong about both. So there's a lesson learned.

God, please make Thursday not suck.