While I'm away on vacation, I'm posting some of your favourite "Outtakes" columns that have appeared in the Peterborough Examiner over the years. The scary part, is these are all absolutely true...
It happens to us all eventually.
You can’t find your glasses, when they can be found on the top of your head. You can’t find your keys, when they’ve been hooked to your belt loop all along.
And how many of us have escaped from the mall only to wind up wandering, dazed and confused through a sea of grey asphalt, thrown into an impromptu game of “Where’s Waldo?”
C’mon, ‘fess up. I know it’s happened to you. Let’s see the hands. Thought so. Thanks for being honest.
Misplacing one’s vehicle in such an environment is hardly rare, and perfectly understandable. The parking lots are huge, fat, and well fed on a steady diet of minivans.
Of course, just because I’m so darn competitive and it’s my name up there beside the picture, I just have to go one better.
Thus, not only did I lose our minivan, but I misplaced the parking lot, too.
Allow me to explain. A few weeks ago I had some business to take care of in downtown Toronto. And I mean right downtown – amidst the skyscrapers and the glass towers of opulent Bay Street.
I was running late as it was, and cognizant of the parking space as an endangered species I wheeled into the first underground parking garage I could find. Perfect, I thought. I’m here, and I’m parked. I may have to walk for a bit, but hoofing it for a few blocks in downtown Hogtown beats driving a few blocks any day.
As it happened, I misjudged the distance. I must have walked a dozen of those blocks before arriving, finally, at Gerrard and Seaton.
Three hours later, I finish up and step back into the street - and into a steady rain. Just 12 blocks to the building where I parked. Could be worse, I muttered to myself. “They could have moved the building.”
Exactly…
The building, under which I parked, was indeed right where I had left it. The problem, was that I had conveniently forgotten where I’d left it. The closer I got to the major intersections, the more I realized all the buildings look the same from the street. With the possible exception of good ol’ Maple Leafs Gardens on Carlton, its’ gold exterior magnificent still, it was as if I had stepped into an entirely different city.
I kept on walking, in circles, in the rain. Looking for a sign, a landmark, a familiar revolving door. Lord Convict Black and his entourage. Anything.
I saw a police officer on the street corner and considered approaching him for help, but thought better of it. You know how the conversation would go.
‘Excuse me, but I seem to have misplaced my van.”
“Well, where’d you park?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lot, or building?”
“Building, sir.”
“Which building?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did it look like?”
“Tall…”
I kept walking, for another hour, hopelessly lost with visions of myself huddling on the street for the night, my backpack under my head, aimlessly pointing the key fob, listening for a horn…
And then, a sign…okay, it was just the Snoop Dog poster, but good enough for me. The gold-plated street number on the black oval led me to the sushi bar. It was all coming back, like a dream sequence. And finally, as welcome as a warm sweater and Mom’s apple pie, the yellow “Park HERE!! for $8.50” sign with the arrow pointing downward that I remember driving past on my way into the musty bowels of a building that looked like all the rest.
I had no trouble finding my vehicle. I was in the heart of Toronto’s financial district, after all. The minivan was one of a kind…