37th & O
One of my stupid stories from college is that when I was a student at Georgetown we had a ground-floor apartment looking out on the corner of 37th & O, which happens to be a steep hill (shoutout, The Hilltop). Together with the fact that there was almost exclusively street parking in the neighborhood, that was why on the weekends we’d grab some beers, cram onto our patio, and enjoy watching people (try to?) parallel park.
Self-driving cars have probably ruined this pastime, just like technology tends to take the fun out of everything, but back then it was the case that people had manual transmissions and also occasionally bad judgment, so as they tried to parallel park on that steep hill, they might burn out their clutch or hit another car, though they also might execute it perfectly. Either way, there was the potential for risk or reward.
And there we were, a bunch of punk college kids, watching.
Boy is performance anxiety a thing if you let it be.
That said, we tried to be a celebratory culture. If someone nailed their parking, they got a rousing round of applause and would exit their car a hero. Reward.
But we also held people accountable. If a person hit another car, they would get uproariously booed and asked if they planned to leave a note. Risk.
In the middle, there were some times when someone would begin parallel parking, likely pumped about finding a spot, only to catch a glimpse of the peanut gallery sitting behind the fence on the sidewalk and decide to drive away.
And that peanut gallery ended up getting pretty big over time because the spectator sport of parallel parking was so fun and brainless. But as it got bigger, I also imagine we became more intimidating.
It was never meant to be bullying. But it was always pressure.
Anyway, after I told this story out loud recently, Anthony said I should also tell it here because he thought it was funny. But someone else asked, “What’s the takeaway?”
Well, we were just a bunch of punk kids. No one parallel parking on 37th & O should have paid us any mind. We were in no position to judge.
But we did so they did.
Which is a weird, messed up reality that happens all the time.
– Tim
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