Parallel Nation

I'm fortunate. For the last 24 years, the state where I live has allowed me to drive a car. I've pretty much kept my end of the bargain all this time. A couple of traffic tickets here. A minor fender bender or two there. Nobody got hurt. No airbags went off. Nothing a check based on a reasonable estimate from a friendly insurance company couldn't cure. No DUI's. I feel like I know my limitations. Now, I know people who don't and, as a result, they received a reminder or two from our dedicated peace officers. They were terrible drivers to begin with and mixing their lack of skill with copious amounts of alcohol or other alterants was a recipe for disaster and destruction. Society did both them and itself a favor. Unfortunately, these people still operate on our byways due to the fact that they have to get their jobs (which lucky for them probably did not require a pee test). And like all good working folk, they like to stop by the neighborhood tavern afterwards to knock back one or fourteen which means that everyone's luck will run out eventually or else until they start making foam rubber cars. Maybe the Germans are working on that.

A few weeks back, as my birthday loomed, I got an early start and made it to the DMV before work and before the huddled masses flooded the place. Most of the people sitting in the waiting room were parents and teenagers waiting to take their driving test. Out of curiosity, I asked the state trooper at the reception desk if parallel parking was still a requirement on the driving test. He replied with a terse and perfunctory "no". Eureka. It hit me like a ton of Volvos: that's what's wrong with society today! Nobody parallel parks anymore and the emerging citizenry isn't required to know how to. A damn shame.

I put my foot down two years ago when my family spent $130 in one week filling up the gas tanks of his and hers SUV's. It was ridiculous and wasteful. Truth be known, it was just too expensive. We have smaller cars now and we spend half that on gas. Can we cart enough crap to outfit a regiment of airborne infantry when we go on summer vacation? No. But so what? I'm the dad. That means I have to carry less crap up stairs, down boardwalks, across parking lots and so forth. And parking those things was a royal bitch. It was like being a 747 pilot. If you missed your spot on your approach, you pulled up circled and tried again, hoping that some asshole hadn't beat you to it. On a downtown street, there are always plenty of spots in the middle of a line of cars. You just have to maneuver into them. It was a challenge when you drove the V-17 hemi powered, Expiyukon dualie with a third, fourth, and fifth seat. Most drivers these days avoid those types of situations. I didn't back then and still don't. It's easier with the smaller auto. When snuggly parked, a Darin McGavin as the Christmas Story dad sense of pride washes over you. You walk taller. Your handshake is three times firmer at the beginning of your meeting and there's at worst a 75% chance of closing the deal. You wear your ability like Manfred Van Richtofen wore the Pour le Merite.

John F. Kennedy said, "We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard". Whether he was talking about going to the moon or shagging movie stars doesn't matter. He was reiterating the American mantra. Sadly, entire generations will not wear the badge of motorist honor. My generation didn't have to fight a war. Prior and subsequent ones did and I salute them. Right, wrong, or somewhere in between, they did what they had to do. But we had to learn how to parallel park. It was a character builder much in the sense of playing football for Bear Bryant or basketball for Bobby Knight.

If you didn't, you failed the driver's test. No driver's license. No homecoming date. No handjob. Maneuvering mom's Pontiac wagon in between those two highway patrol Crown Vics was mission critical.

But the future wave is the exempt generation. And what will happen to them? Their posture will slacken almost to the point where their knuckles drag the ground. Their language will become even more monosyllabic (which I believe was part of the former Yugoslavia) and simian like. In fact, a Saturday night conversation may sound like this:

"Dad? Give keys. Gwan drive. Now."

But there's also a good chance they might just text message their request to their parents in which case, even fewer letters will be used. And all because they never got the chance to extend their arm across the passenger side seat, look over their shoulder to the point of pinching a nerve in one's neck and making a face that resembles the face Elvis made during his last bowel movement.

One day, these kids will run your commuter railroads, your utilities, the Federal Reserve. Teach them to parallel park. Please, for the love of sweet baby Jesus up on the cross. To paraphrase Princess Leia, help us, you're our only hope.