Mattox Live

I am a truck girl. Save for a year in a car right after I started driving (a fact even I forget most of the time), I’ve always driven a truck (specifically an F-150 if you want to get specific). It’s just comfortable to me! I’ve rented cars a few times, but I always feel very unsure of myself… like I’m about to be squished by other drivers.

I can maneuver a truck just about anywhere, and I take pride in that fact! So when I find myself in a situation where I am flustered due to the size of my vehicle, I get very frustrated in general.

This happened today.

I had a quick photo to take downtown Nashville, and it required my parking in a parking garage. Well, I suppose I could have parked elsewhere and walked a short distance to the building, but I was in dress shoes and the thought of being able to park under the building where I needed to be sounded wonderful.

Until I got there, and just getting into the garage required that I backup and try again because it was a sharp 90º left turn into it. I should have said, “Abort! Abort!” right then and there, but no… I’m stubborn and determined.

I get my parking ticket, get into the garage and… this garage is absolutely not made for pickup trucks. Most of the spots are marked “Compact Only” (which seemed obvious given the fact that I don’t know how you’d get anything else in there!) but I kept going down the garage, hoping I might find two spots open side-by-side so I could get into them.

Did that happen?

Nope.

But I DID finally find a spot wide enough to get in and it was beside a pole, so after a few tries I finally got into the spot. I was sweating before I even got out of the truck to go up to do that photo!!

I just hoped I’d be able to get back out, but I figured I’d deal with that later.

Believe it or not, afterwards getting out of the spot was the easy part!! It was getting out of the garage altogether that was impossible. I had to do another sharp 90º turn to get out, once again walking it back and forth until I could line up where I wouldn’t hit the wall on my left or a cement pole on my right.

I put my ticket in… and it won’t read it. Now, granted initially I had forgotten to get it validated, so that first time you could have said was all my fault. Except that even after I got parked again (this time I admit I was in a handicapped spot which I NEVER EVER EVER EVER do because I understand how important they are but I was only there for a second and I was incredibly flustered OMG I was so flustered and no one had come or gone from the garage in the 10 minutes I’d already been trying to leave so I figured it might be okay just this once so please, please, please don’t anyone yell at me), got my ticket validated, did the whole 90º turn again… IT STILL WOULDN’T WORK! So I actually backed my way down this garage until I could turn around and tried another gate… and THAT one wouldn’t work.

So I called security.

They were at lunch.

After running around for what felt like forever, I finally found a security guard to let me out… only they actually had to walk out and open the gate because even they couldn’t buzz me out. I WAS TRAPPED IN THE GARAGE IN MY TRUCK THAT DIDN’T FIT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

In hindsight? I find the whole thing hilarious. In that moment, though, all I could think was that I briefly — oh so briefly — wished I had a car instead of a truck.

Then I went and had some coffee and came back to my senses. Still a truck girl… who will think twice about parking underground again.