Parallel Parking

            I had dinner with my sister the other night. We ate at a Szechuan restaurant in Alhambra. The food was great, but there's always a wait for a table. The restaurant had chairs set up outside on the sidewalk as a courtesy. My sister and I sat and read the menu while we waited.
            A car pulled up to parallel park at the curb in front of us. There was nothing else to do but watch as they backed their car in. There were probably a half dozen of us watching this poor guy try to park. He was off kilter to begin with and it got progressively worse from there. He must have pulled up and backed in twenty times before he got it right. My sister and I looked at each other and shook our heads. It was hard to watch.
            About ten minutes later another car pulled up and tried to parallel park. It looked strikingly similar to the first car. I found myself getting mildly agitated as I watched one bad decision after another. I noticed the people sitting next to me were frustrated too. I heard them say, "no! Turn the wheel the other way!" To see people fail over and over again was interesting to me. Watching their wheels turn one way and then the other, as they pulled forward and backed up, stopping to make proximity calculations, pulling into traffic, backing out of traffic, only to realize they had repeated the same mistake. The drivers were Chinese. Nothing racist here, it's just an observation. (My editor still thinks it's racist).
            My sister and I shook our heads and laughed. A third car pulled up a few minutes later. We patrons sitting on the sidewalk let out a uniform groan. Oh no.