May 17, 2010
On my way to the parking lot at work today, I found the entry road set up with an elaborate obstacle course. First, I had to thread my way between bright orange traffic cones arranged in a serpentine pattern. As I rolled my car between them, terrified of bumping over a cone, I felt as if I were back in school, taking my driving test on a course of orange cones in the parking lot.
Next, I had to navigate between flame-throwers belching gouts of super-heated fire in my path. Careful to keep my windows up through the firestorm, I swerved away from the worst of the blasts. But still, I could see fresh scorch marks on the paint job of my Smart car.
After the flame-throwers came a flock of enraged birds dropping great white blobs of bird crap from above. Veering right and left, I tried desperately to dodge the most extreme deposits, to no avail. Just as I was nearing the end of the bird course, a massive glob of white and black poop splattered on my windshield, smack in my sights.
This bird crap blast was just in time to obscure my view as I drove into the pounding mechanical jaws of the industrial nightmare course. If I steered just one inch too far in one direction at the wrong time or was the slightest bit too slow or out of synch with the rising and falling hammers, my car would be pounded into sheet metal, with me as the bloody middle layer.
Saying a desperate prayer, I lurched the car forward, barely missing a hammer as it slammed down behind me. I continued ahead, shunting left, then right, then stopping, then starting. One huge hammer crashed down on the front fender, tearing it free, but somehow, miraculously, I made it to the other side.
Crying out with joyous relief, I swiped my pass card at the gate and continued through to the parking area. I had made it through the awful gauntlet! I had come through the most horrifying challenge of all, and I was more or less intact and ready to park. Except for one last problem.
I couldn’t find a parking space.
