Back Up the Truck

 I was wondering how I would title this post and then this phrase floated through my head and I was afraid it meant something dirty, but when I googled it it actually means "signaling an extremely bullish sentiment to purchase a large amount of a stock or asset, often when prices are low" which, okay, "extremely bullish" sounds a little pervy but finance stuff is actually the opposite of sexy, to me at least. Except then I accidentally caught sight of another search result which was a Reddit post that said "Anyone else get turned on when they see their truck?" and, well, that was unfortunate. 

Anyway, Nancy was talking about backing in to parking spots (in your car, to be clear) and saying it usually seems useless to her, and is often done by men showing off. One of my very dear friends (who is a man) always backs into parking spots and, upon some fairly short and not very deep reflection, I would have to conclude that it is, largely, for purposes of showing off: I don't believe he actually think she'll have a pressing need to make a rapid getaway from bar night - his days of chucking ice at other patrons are a couple of decades behind him, after all. Honestly, I don't have a big issue with it, because people who can swiftly and effortlessly back into places is impressive to me.

I don't think I ever backed in anywhere before we got a vehicle with a backup camera. I decided I would start with our driveway because we live on a very quiet street so I would have privacy and not hold up anyone, and in the winter when leaving for work early in the morning (this was before we cleaned out the garage so I could park in it) if there was snow and ice it was nice to have the driver's door right outside the front door so I could just get in and go. The driveway often gets slippery and gross, and getting around the car to the driver's side was sometimes a perilous adventure.

The first time I tried to back in I looked at the backup camera the whole time, which resulted in vertigo and nausea. I realized that I should use it as a check rather than a comprehensive guide. 

A couple of times it has been pretty much necessary to back in to a parking spot. When we go to the National Arts Centre there are often parking attendants that direct you to which spot you are to park in, and there are multiple pillars which make many spots very tight. My eye doctor's office has limited parking and there is often weird construction going on which also makes for limited spots. I had to look this up as well, because sometimes I instinctively feel that backing in will be viable while driving in forward will not - apparently backing in allows the front wheels to guide the car which makes for better precision in tight or narrow spots. 

So I'm happy that it's now an option for me, although I still don't find it second nature. And if the parking lot is curved rather than straight, forget about it. For some reason my brain cannot process how to angle my vehicle between two straight lines within a curved space. The seniors center parking lot we park in for Bluesfest is like this - the outer spots are around a curved radius. Once I drove with Eve and Zarah, and tried to back in, and by the time I realized I should not have there were two other patrons trying to help me, which of course just made it all worse, and we all ended up in hysterics. The parking lot was up a hill from the Festival grounds, and much later when we were all walking around Bluesfest the couple saw us and pointed and laughed at me again - it was that bad. 

All fun and games until you have to park in front of strangers

I would not have guessed I could write this many paragraphs about this issue. I am an anxious person and I do not love driving or any of the associated tasks, and I am sort of grateful that technology has made this available to me. When I used to drive Eve places and then pick her up, if I waited in the car I would back in so I could see when she came out of basketball practice or whatever, and she would always compliment me on my backing-in job. Once Matt worked late so we took two vehicles to bar night and he said that watching me back in made him fall in love with me all over again. And that doesn't even hold a candle to GPS, which means I've been able to drive all over the province on my own or with Eve when Matt and Angus were occupied with baseball, without having a nervous breakdown or having us disappear never to be heard from again.