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Parking the car can be tough

We all have our challenges. Some people aren’t good with numbers. With others, it’s exercise. With others, it’s technology. I am not good with any of those things — well, more or less.
car
Parking can be a challenge.

We all have our challenges.

Some people aren’t good with numbers. With others, it’s exercise. With others, it’s technology.

I am not good with any of those things — well, more or less. I know how to do simple arithmetic, I know how to turn on my computer and I go for a walk once in a while. But that’s about it.

But my biggest challenge is associated with our vehicle. That is, when it comes to parking.

I am not speaking here about anything as challenging as parallel parking. I am talking about heading straight into a spot delineated by two white lines.

I rarely get it right.

“You’re over the line,” the husband will observe, it seems every time I make the effort. “I’d back up and try again.”

So I do.

“You’re crooked,” the husband will say. “You’ll want to straighten up.”

As I say, it’s my personal challenge.

The husband isn’t without a few of his own.

His biggest, it seems to me, is associated with the dry cleaner, which we visit on an all-too-frequent basis.

“Oh, drat,” he said the other day. We were out for dim sum and some soy sauce had landed on his shirt. “I guess I’m off to the dry cleaner.”

The week before it was Gatorade, which he’d dripped on his sweater. The week before that, it was plum sauce.

The husband’s garments, in fact, have been visited by all manner of substances — everything from coffee to ketchup.

Let’s just say we spend a small fortune on dry cleaning, and ought to be sending the dry cleaning folks an annual Christmas card.

Let’s just say that the other day when we were drawing up a budget for retirement — it’s coming one day soon — this entered the discussion.

“So let’s see,” said the husband. “In an average month, we’ll want to put aside — what? — $800 a month for food, $150 for gas and $400 for taxes. I think we’ll be able to manage.”

“You’re forgetting something,” I said. “The dry cleaning.”

“Yikes,” said the husband. “You’re absolutely right.”

At the current rate, we figured, we’d need to reserve several thousand dollars a year just to clean the husband’s clothes. That’s no chump change.

In a perfect world, I suppose the husband and I would seek out personal trainers: one for me to assist with parking, and one for him to assist with food.

We both have our challenges, that much we know. We’ll take any help we can get.