Dented Pumpkin

Maybe it's because my brain is a dented pumpkin these days, especially at 10 p.m. Maybe it's because I can't see very well over the hood of my car. But yesterday evening I ran my car right over a sizable median in the parking garage. I wouldn't call it a speed bump. It was way wider, and it was clearly in place to do more than just curb my speed. I couldn't roll back over it in reverse, nor could I continue to pull my back wheels over it in forward. I looked around and saw other parking garage patrons looking completely confused and totally not interested in helping me in my predicament. My hands started to shake and I envisioned all of the Japanese tourists who would now be coming to Harvard Square and flashing their digital cameras and popping the peace sign in front of my car, the car that the dented pumpkin brain got to straddle the parking garage median. I got out of the car and said a silent prayer that God would send me a Clarence kind of Angel in the form of a parking attendant. I proceeded upstairs and met my man with wings.

I babbled something about this terrible thing that had occurred in parking spot #100, but clearly all he could see was Jaba the Hut with hair, so he followed me back to my car, put the keys in the ignition, and rolled the car right over the median like it was as easy as sneezing.

He got out of the car and, forgive a pun, but there was a pregnant pause, followed by his eyebrows raising and my eyebrows raising and my voice becoming very high THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU'RE A PROFESSIONAL SERIOUSLY THANK YOU SO MUCH. Something became clear to me that he expected a tip and something became clear to him that I had $.42 in my wallet and then something became mutually clear that I would not make out with him in exchange for him getting my car out of a rut.

2007. What a year for the green bus and me. I've crapped in it, peed in it, and now I nearly had to give up sexual favors to get it out of great parking garage peril.