One of the other sometimes frustrating realities of working downtown is parking in a ramp. I’m extremely fortunate that my employer pays 100 percent of my parking – which ain’t cheap – but daily parking in a ramp is one of the small pinpricks that contributes to the overall deflation of the soul.
The other day I got stuck behind a woman driving a Lincoln Navigator. This SUV has the turning radius of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. Indeed, she couldn’t get close enough to the ticket-dispenser, so she had to open the door and dangle one of her legs out to grab the ticket.
As she crept forward at a snails pace, the roof of her tank just barely missed the concrete ceiling beams of the ramp. The Northstar ramp is an obstacle course of a ramp and I held my breath watching the behemoth on wheels skim past the parked cars as it slowly edged around the tight corners.
I wasn’t necessarily in a hurry to get to work. I was more looking forward to getting at my morning coffee fix. So I was a bit anxious. My anxiety grew as the monument on wheels in front of me lumbered around corner after corner. Fed up, I angrily turned into the first nook of a space that I could find. Part of my car came to rest just over the yellow line that separates the parking spaces. No big deal. I see many cars parked like this everyday. Upon my return to my car at the end of the day, I’ve got a note stuck in my door from ramp management scolding me for parking in ‘two spaces’ at once.
Bastards…
2 comments:
I try not to drive too often to downtown Iowa City, just so I can avoid the ramps.
I despise parking ramps. I always feel like I am lost in them and often can't find my way to the exit even though I am following the clearly marked EXIT signs. You are a brave, brave man for parking in them day after day.
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