By Michelle Wyckoff

Parking Spaces.  Defined by someone on the internet as ” a space where automobiles can be parked.”   In a parking lot.  In Pueblo.  At Walmart.  I find myself  parking there quite frequently.  Any time I feel the need for a really good challenge, I go park there.

I never have trouble finding a space.  After all, there must be more than a thousand spaces to pick from.  Out of those, there might be 100 empties on any given day. The problem is finding my car when I come out.  It’s never where it should be.  Every time I exit the store, I hear Rod Sterling’s voice telling me I’ve just entered the “Twilight Zone.”  It takes me forever to find my car.  I have a red “horn” on my key fob that would ‘honk’ me to it, but I’m always too embarrassed to use it. Everyone would know I lost my car.  Instead, I tour the lot until I get lucky.  

Last week, I went there, and, coming out, I spotted my car right off.  As soon as I saw it, my left eyebrow automatically raised in skepticism, but I counted my blessings and pushed the button to open the hatch in the back.  I had some things to put in there, and it was beginning to rain.  The hatch didn’t open.  I pushed it again, and again, it didn’t open.  When I got there, I realized it wasn’t my car.  It looked just like my car, same make, model and color, but not mine.    

I pushed my cart around the parking lot in the rain, until, after several minutes, I got lucky.  There was my car, right where I’d left it, with the hatch open, ready for me to load.