ONE of the joys of living in a coastal town is the general ease of finding a parking place, regardless of where you go.
But the other day, a bit to my surprise, I found myself having to parallel park.
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It was a slightly strange sensation, not unlike bumping into an ex-girlfriend from a long time ago.
You have to greet, you do so rather awkwardly, you share a few pleasantries, and then move on, relieved.
Then you realise, ‘hey, that really wasn’t so bad’.
The dreaded parallel park is the stuff of nightmares for anyone taking their driver’s licence.
Many never really master it, or want to.
I know some people who will drive 200 metres to avoid having to parallel park.
Others have parallel parked maybe once in the last 10 years, or only when absolutely desperate.
I can remember squeezing my mom’s old car past the post, hoping like crazy I had made it in properly.
Gave the instructor a hopeful look.
He shook his head. “Have another try,” he said.
My sister thought she’d pass her driver’s test easily, despite minimal practice.
She could drive, that was for sure, usually like a bat out of hell.
I tried to warn her about the parallel parking, in vain.
As expected, she failed quite stunningly.
To her credit, she turned defeat into overwhelming victory and is now arguably the best parallel parker in the family.
By the time she moved to Johannesburg and later Brisbane in Australia, she was a parking master.
“Ask Mom,” she said of our mother who’d been for a visit. “I parallel parked with her the other day, down a hill!”
While the parallel park is obviously an important aspect of driving, considering how some people avoid it, the time in testing may be better used emphasising general road etiquette.
“In Australia everyone obeys the rules of the road,” said mom.
“Welcome home,” I laughed.
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