I changed my mind about the potential chauvinism deal. I mean, I didn’t change my mind, exactly.

You’ll get your chance to explain where you’re coming from. You will bring over brownie mix, and he’ll make brownies. You’ll watch movies, ones that you haven’t seen but that he thinks you’ll like. He’ll be right. You won’t sleep because you will be too excited. You will talk about everything. You will tease each other. You will make plans. You will talk politics and find some common ground. You will fall asleep and when you open your eyes, he will be walking through the door with the bacon and eggs that he woke up early to make just for you. You will be so happy. You will do the dishes as quietly as you can, since he’s asleep. You think feminist thoughts while you’re doing the dishes. You will leave him cherries in a bowl in the fridge. You will awkwardly say hello to his landlady on the way out, then panic and wonder if you should have made better conversation than “Hi!” as you shut the door.

***

I have been working at the same office building for a year and a half. I have never had an assigned parking spot, but every day, I park in the same spot. For the past week or so, I’ve been noticing that if I don’t get to the office early enough (ha, my definition of early is much different from yours, I’ll imagine), someone will be in “my” spot.

So yesterday, I had to park in a different spot. Our parking system is totally unintelligible and strange, so when you see a spot that has no number painted into the concrete at its opening, you assume that it’s free. So I parked in one.

I went to my car after work to see a note. “THIS IS A RESERVED PARKING SPACE.” Pssh, like hell it is. So I texted my boss and told him that it is probably time to see about getting me a real parking spot. My lovely lady boss went down to greet the very scary building secretary today, and was met with resistance. Lots of resistance.

And, to top off that resistance, the scary building secretary said something to my lady boss about how she recognized my license plate and also the fact that my car had duct tape on it. What exactly does that have to do with anything?

My car took a beating in Chicago. I was the hit part of a hit-and-run, leaving a giant jagged wound in my back bumper. My windows were spray painted. (For like a month, I had to roll down my window to turn left because the word “PAIN” was in my way. I eventually paid a guy $8 to razor-blade the paint off.) My front side bumper was hit. I was driving along a narrow street and a man opened his door, shattering my side-view mirror.

All of these things are parts of Chicago that I will carry with me until my car dies, because even though I pay Allstate a significant amount of money each month in “full-coverage” insurance and have never been in an accident that they had to pay any money for, it’s going to cost me my full deductible to fix each individual incident of damage, which at current count is 2 new bumpers and whatever else they decide that they’ll need. Duct tape, on the other hand, is $4/roll, and every time I buy it, my insurance doesn’t go up.

With the transmission starting to get janky – through no fault of my own, it’s a 3rd gear pressure switch thing, whatever that means – I’m making important decisions and stocking away money to fix that when it goes rather than keeping up with your needless aesthetic expectations.

So, scary building secretary, the reason that my car looks like it belongs to an undesirable is merely because of the financial advantages to not fixing my car (plus, no one wants to steal a car that’s not worth chopping up and selling). Don’t think that I haven’t looked into it, because I have. Stop judging people for what their cars look like. The quality of their hearts and souls is of far greater importance.

The conclusion here? I now have an assigned parking spot. I am annoyed about it. But…the parking spot coupled with my brand new dual monitors (46 inches of computer screen!) means that I am having a great week. I am so blessed to work where I do. I am so grateful. Currently bitchy, but so incredibly happy.