The parallels between parking and crime.

(the face of crime today)

I was wedged between two garbage cans, the front end of the sweet little Honda at an almost perfect 45 degree angle. Back end doing a good impression of the cheese in the sandwich of garbage cans. Front end poking out at the afore mentioned angle and quite possibly over the yellow line in the middle of the street.
And the telltale symbols of a police car were fast approaching in my rearview mirror.
If my palms were any sweatier I'd start giving serious consideration to some sort of moisture retrieval device because California suffers from droughts you know and my palm sweat just might keep us all in avocados and oranges for another year.
The back alley of a shopping complex is a strange place to spend any amount of time. All kinds of odd characters end up walking through.
Like teenagers.
I saw at least 4 of them, though not together, but 4 I am pretty sure constitutes a gang. They may have just been headed to the movie theater down the street and maybe they were and not up to anything nefarious but one of them had a skateboard...A SKATEBOARD. And though I didn't get a good look at it I can surmise from him being a teenager taking a shortcut down the back alley of a shopping center and from the thundering of my heart that he was at the very least sporting some sort of flaming skull sticker on the underside of his skateboard and at most going to see an "R" rated movie. There could be ta ta's and liberal use of the "F" word in said movie. Which now that I think of it was probably why he was in such a hurry, whizzing by at breakneck speeds of at least 1.2 miles an hour on his quite possibly flaming skull festooned skateboard.
And I was wedging our sweet little Honda between two garbage cans.
And my heart was pounding with a combination of nerves, excitement and a dash of paranoia. A potent cocktail of emotions.
The garbage cans are important to this tale. As they were brought from home.
Never have I felt more criminal then when we took 2 large rolling garbage bins from the back seat of our car and placed them in the back alley of the shopping center. I was half sure the workers taking smoking breaks in the back of the grocery store would come over and place me under citizen's arrest for intent to use a privately owned trash can in a public setting without a permit. I was alarmed when they didn't, assuming of course that they were video-ing my felonious use of home owned trash cans for some sinister purpose like posting on Youtube or selling back to me in a blatantly blackmail-esque scheme....or......maybe they were just calling the cops. Avoiding physical and verbal contact with me all together.

Perhaps they glanced across the empty parking lot to the little street I'd arranged my trash cans on and was wedging my car between and could see that I was Canadian. Which means I'm hardy and can withstand freezing temperatures and possibly wrestle polar bears and maybe....just maybe they saw in that one nervous glance they shot my way...in that moment when our eyes connected that I was some one who had the notable distinction of having watched EVERY episode of the first generation of Power Rangers, except for the one where they got the green ranger, and knew I could probably do some serious back alley street fighting if need be. (I have to take a moment and curse pre-vcr and pre-dvr days. Damn you archaic past with no means of recording the Power Rangers, especially the episode when they got the green ranger...damn you.)

Having this entire mental battle with possible gang members and do-gooder store employees whilst I do something out of the norm in a back alley rarely used street played on my nerves. So when I saw that car in my rear view mirror, the cop car, silently stalking up the hill behind me, Officer inside most likely coming to arrest me for taking our garbage cans on a public outing, for subjecting the fine citizens of Oceanside to strange parking and unusual use of a Honda, I was damn near frozen with fear. The car came closer and I winced and gritted my teeth and tried my best not to fling myself out of our vehicle and onto the hood of a moving Police vehicle begging for mercy. Then I wavered, the car drew almost level with ours and I bit my tongue trying not to have my fear twist around inside me and morph into defensive anger resulting in me spewing my annoyance at having a Cop disrupt my work by showing off my impressive vocabulary of 4 letter words.
And he drove by.
What the.......fricking hell?
Did that cop NOT notice that I was in the midst of some seriously sloppy parallel parking? Was he not at all concerned about the possible threat I posed, hauling my own trash cans miles from home to an empty street with convenient parallel parking along the sides? Was me sticking my trash cans out there, subjecting the world to their unusual presence, obviously pretending they were cars to park between, not of criminal importance?
Seriously?
I mean I had an escape route all picked out, I was grabbing hold of my honey and prepared to haul my ass and his over the sandy embankment, weaving between the palm trees until we hit the highway at which point we were going to start thumbing a ride to Mexico, Cuba or Canada. I can not reveal which, as this pretty much constitutes all of my secret escape plans, and if I told you which location I was headed for you could be coerced into revealing that fact and I might very well end up prosecuted for such crimes as practicing parallel parking between trash cans.
My husband says I should not worry. And that the Cop just rolled on by all casual like with out so much as a blurp from his siren or flash of his lights because he obviously summed up the situation. That we were practicing parallel parking in a safe, out of the way location. And we were using trash cans instead of stranger's cars so as to minimize the potential damage.
Hmm. Possibly.
OR he could have been radioing us in and calling for backup, having seen the same thing the store employee saw when he flicked a glance at me from behind his standard issue cop sunglasses.
Alan says that gnawing, palm sweating edge of my seat ready to strike a Power Ranger pose feeling is just nerves. Driver's inexperience. A case of too much embarrassment.
I think it's because a part of my brain knows that I most definitely must be committing some sort of crime. I have to be.
Why else would it feel so crime-y?
I just can not bring myself to believe that the only one with a problem about practicing parallel parking with trash cans is me. I am sure it is an issue that is weighing heavily on every one's minds.
The skateboarder kid probably went home early from the movie, unable to concentrate on on the ta ta's and spent the evening polishing his flaming skull thinking about me. Me parking the car parallel style. And the cop has got to be kicked back in his lazy boy recliner, dog chewing on his handcuffs, the Evening News a low murmur in the back ground accompanying the rapid flip of pages as he thumbs through his Cop rule book. Looking for the law that says practicing parallel parking with trash cans is wrong. I have seen the tv shows. I KNOW how this works, a judge some where is on hold, growing increasingly frustrated with me, a person he's never met, as he waits for the Cop to find the law so he can issue the warrant and they can come haul me and my trash cans away to jail. I am not sure I have enough bail money for all three of us.
Alan says nobody cares if a beginner driver practices parking in a parking lot, that we're not all born just knowing instinctively how to parallel park. He gently points out again the only one acting oddly is me........ Hmmmmm.
Tomorrow I am going to go practice parallel parking again. I am defying the fear, of either embarrassment or of going to jail for playing with my trash cans in public. Either way I'm overcoming the nerves. Perhaps I'm cut out for a life of crime after all.