Kevin Page: It wasn’t a good day for carparking

Kevin Page reckons the guys who planned carparking for the future were obviously thinking the Remuera Tractor–size vehicles were just a passing fad when they got the tape measure and spray paint out. Photo / 123rf

OPINION

In my day-to-day employment, I am fortunate to be able to drive around in a rather nice vehicle.

It would be stretching it a bit to call it “luxurious” but for me, at the end of a long day on the road, it’s rather pleasant to be able to hop out and not feel like you’ve just been run over by a pack of rather peeved Irish rugby players heading for the airport after their time in France has just come to an unexpected end.

If you know what I mean.

Anyway, there I was last week on a day off and I needed to visit the big(ger) smoke to satisfy the dietary needs of She Who Must Be Obeyed. I say “dietary”, I mean “baking”. In that, Mrs P was on a mission to prepare some muffins for a visitor and was missing an important ingredient.

Securing the said item would be no problem, I assured her. I needed to go out of town to drop something off to a client. There was an appropriate retail outlet for Mrs P’s project close by so I would kill two birds with one stone.

And so, off I went. Nice coffee from Wild Bean on board for the drive. Before you know it I’m out on the open highway. Cruising along at a comfortable speed, sipping my coffee while listening to a podcast informing me how much money I can save for my retirement by not buying a coffee every day.

Oops. I guess sometimes you just have to live for the day, don’t you?

Anyway.

My drop-off task complete, I literally drive two minutes around the corner and park at the front of a small parade of shops.

Now the vehicle I drive is not what you would call compact. It’s not ostentatiously large by any means, but I do some big miles and occasionally I have to drop off some equipment and/or fellow workers at isolated places. So it needs to be big enough to accommodate all that.

It can, and does, fit snugly into your average space but I’ve long felt the guys who planned such carparking for the future were obviously thinking the Remuera Tractor–size vehicles back then were just a passing fad when they got the tape measure and spray paint out.

So, I’m in a parking space and it’s tight. But it’s legal and I’m comfortable with how I leave it as I go off to purchase the stuff that makes Mrs P’s muffins, well, Mrs P’s Muffins. Note to self: Entrepreneurial opportunity there?

Within three shakes of a carefully handled flour sieve, I’m back at the vehicle where I’m greeted by a rather large chap who bluntly asks: “This your car?”

Now, my car is emblazoned with the livery of the company I work for when I’m not sitting in front of a computer screen bashing out some words for you each week Dear Reader. So this sort of inquiry happens on a regular basis.

“It is,” I say politely, “but I’m actually not from around here so I’d have to put you on to the local guy who handles this area if you need a job priced.”

The look on his face suggested frustration, with a little bit of anger thrown in for good measure, so I quickly deduced throwing a bit of work my way was probably not on his agenda.

“Come and have a look at this,” he said motioning me to the back of my car.

At this stage I’m still thinking he’s in complaining mode. If it’s not work related then obviously, he’s got some problem with my parking.

Now I don’t know about you, but these days I’m a bit wary of encounters around cars. You may recall a few years ago now some toad (and I use that term only because this is a family newspaper), who has never been caught or charged by the way, ran me over when another bloke and I tried to stop him driving off from shoplifting.

Up till then I’d always thought I was reasonably bulletproof. Not these days. That sort of thing leaves you on edge. You just never know what you are going to get.

And so it was with some trepidation I followed this bloke to the back of the car. Okay, I thought, if this turns into a bit of a road-rage attack I’m going to whack him with the nearest thing I can get my hands on.

Unfortunately, all I had on me was a bag of gluten-free flour. Groan. Oh well. If nothing else I can cover him with the powdery stuff and run away while he’s coughing and spluttering.

Damn. I wish I had some eggs and milk too. Then I could really batter him! Boom, boom.

But I digress.

So we get to the back of the car and my new friend suddenly turns all forlorn and apologetic. He’s clipped my car and broken the plastic covering on the tail light. The pieces are now scattered on the ground.

There’s no damage to his car — he points to a large blue ute with a dog in the back parked 20 yards up the road — but it’s new and he’s still getting used to it, he says. As he’s pulled out of the spot next to me he got a bit too close and the inevitable has occurred.

While he’s still apologising, we swap details. I commend him on his honesty. A lot of people would have just driven off. It seems in the time since the bump occurred, he’s been searching the shops for me.

There is a sense of relief all round as we do the necessaries and I again thank him for doing the right thing and staying to sort it out rather than just driving off.

He tells me — again — he literally just pulled out, heard the noise of the collision and then pulled over in the next available spot to go back and investigate.

As we stand there, and his tale is recounted (yet again) at the rear of my car, we hear the sound of another collision.

This time it has come from a small hatchback that has just reversed out of its parking space straight into the front door of a brand-new blue ute parked 20 yards away with a dog sitting in the back.