XLIX. Field of Bad Dreams

I am a sworn enemy of the paid downtown parking lot. I hate these joints.

I hate the parking garage for sure, with its multiple levels of confusion and trapped exhaust, but it is the open, unattended lot that has me throwing rocks at an empty guard shack and arguing with any Nigerian in a blue shirt who approaches with a handful of ones.

With the parking situation in downtown Washington being what it is, I am forced to park in one of these every so often. It is hell.

Here are Six Truths about all downtown parking lots that you cannot deny if you want to be my friend:

1. They were all paved before Jesus and feature huge plates of displaced pavement. Therefore, when Mr. Haul Ass in the Continental presents you a sharply turning tire, you enjoy a fusillade of missiles firing at your shins as you try to high-step to safety.

2. There is always one exit/entrance that has the long smile of a rusty cable stretched across it that is hard to see, which, for the drunk pedestrian, creates a decapitation risk or a limbo opportunity.

I have run into this cable twice in my life as a motorist, once detoothing the grill of an F-150, and the other one passing easily over the roof of my Miata, giving me a private entrance.

3. I don't exactly know why, but every bottle broken within a 50-mile radius will end up in the downtown parking lot for a shard convention. This makes my daily choice of moccasins particularly "iffy."

4. The yellow lines will be so pale and of little guidance that accurate parking will be plain guesswork. I often get out of my car and realize that I am double-parked. Then I have to get back in and reposition my truck enough times that I lose all interest in personal hygiene and Victor Borge records. (Note: This is highly individual.)

5. For the love of the Internet, can't we invent a more secure payment method than the slot-stuffing shim on a cable? Yesterday, I worked with the precision of Michelangelo for six minutes to get all my bills in that little slot, only to discover my estimate on the parking space number was woefully inaccurate. I accidentally paid for the guy in the Continental. He laughed when he saw what I had done and left me by the slot bank, mouth open, shim in hand.

6. Finally, I have noticed that the unattended lot brings out the worst in me. I always try to cheat the system. I will short them a dollar out of some vague protest at the $3 asking price, or sometimes I will not pay at all in a dim conviction that they lack the authority to enforce a price.

In conclusion, the only good thing to happen to me at the parking lot is that the Continental guy got an insufficient payment ticket on his windshield. Seems like he was a dollar short.