Pay it forward

On Saturday I headed down to the beach to meet a friend for her BBQ. Of course the place was PACKED. Regardless of the severe heat and humidity warnings, everyone and their mother was down at the beach, bbq-ing, volleyball-ing, sunning, kite-ing, biking, blading, rowing, swimming; you name it, they were down there doing it.

As a consequence of everyone's enthusiasm for the summer weather, there was absolutely no parking to be found. And on top of that, the city had decided to reinstigate paid parking at the Beach! While it only took me 20 minutes to get down to Ashbridges, sans le Lakeshore, it was another 20 minutes at least until I spotted someone preparing to pull out. The spot was on my right, so I pulled up, put my car in reverse, and threw on my turn-signal as I waited patiently. Just then, another car entered the parking lane behind me. However, observant driver as he was, he realized that by being behind me he would not only block me from reversing, but he would also block the guy vacating the spot from backing out, and so he pulled around me and continued his own search for a spot.

By this time, my vacating car was just beginning to back out...when yet another car pulled up in the lane behind me. This time, the guy wasn't so observant. For some reason, he couldn't figure out why the car in front of him (me) was signalling right with her reverse lights on. So dude decides to patiently wait behind me. It still didn't dawn on him that he was in anyone's way, even after my vacate-r honked him because being behind me put him absolutely in the way of EVERYONE.

Exasperated, I was on the brink of deciding to take a more aggressive demeanor with the stupid car behind me when I noticed another spot opening up on the left, just ahead--that new driver had no problems backing out because of the stupid guy's "patience"; he was blocking all incoming traffic.

Executively deciding that it wasn't worth it getting out to explain to the dude what exactly the signals coming from my car meant, I just threw my car in gear and sped into the new spot. As I begrudgingly relinquished my firstly found spot, I noticed something that immediately released all my grumpiness: the girl that had just given me her spot had pulled over and was waving something out the window at me. My car now in park, I jumped out and scooted over to her.

"Here, take it."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely! It's good until midnight tonight."
"Wow, thanks so much!"
"No problem, have fun!"

And with that, she drove off, leaving me behind in a humid cloud of unintentional dust, her paid parking stub clutched in my sweaty hands; any disgruntledness that might have been brewing was decidedly dissipated after that. I locked up the car with her ticket in my window, and headed out to enjoy my first official day at the beach this year.

When I finally returned to my car on my way home early to catch a pot-luck birthday, I spotted the ticket on my dash and warmly remembered where the ticket had come from. I crept out of the parking lot, scanning the crowd intently until I spotted a couple heading to the parking meter.

"Excuse me, have you paid for parking yet?"
"No, not yet."
"Well then here, take it, it's still good until midnight."
"Oh, well, gee, thanks!"
"No problem; have fun."

A little something can go a long way. Thanks, lady, for saving my day and starting something good.