Curbs and Barriers

Curbs and Barriers--


Curbs are important.  They provide guidance.  They tell us that we have come to the end of a parking space.  They basically tell us to stop.  Since they are constructed of cement, they mean what they say.

Now, usually I respect curbs.  I know they are there for a purpose.  However, every once in awhile things go a tad wrong.  Once I was upset with a service department.  They parked my little yellow bug against a long, rectangular cement parking barrier--a curb.  Well, I didn't see that barrier.  I should have put the bug in reverse.  I didn't.  I put it in drive.  Naturally I hit that barrier.  There was a choice involved at that point.  Back up or drive over it.  I drove forward.  Was a bit of a rough ride for a little bit until the back wheels cleared that thing.  No doubt men were watching with amazement.  Probably men from the service department as well as salesmen.  I held my head up high as I made my way to the street.  I meant to do it that way.

Then there is the time I drove over a railroad tie.  I was doing home bound tutoring.  Again, I was in a bug.  I saw the railroad ties in the front yard.  Actually thought I would miss them.  Alas, I didn't.  That time I hung the car over the ties.  Had to call my husband at work to come and remove the car which was suspended just a bit.  He is a very patient man.

The last encounter I had with a barrier/curb was tonight.  Our grandson plays on a baseball team.  They were playing for the win in a tournament.  When we arrived, all of the parking spaces that one pulls into were taken.  There was a cement rectangular block at the end of each space.  Beyond the pull- in spaces was a place where you could pull a car beside the barrier.  All I had to do was drive the car beside the barrier--not into it.  Easy.  Done it a million times.  But not a million and one.

I pulled too close to the cement barrier and drove for a tiny bit on top of it.  That would not have been any big deal except there was about six inches between the end of one barrier and the beginning of the next.  Instead of driving off, I drove straight.  We went down just a bit, and then hit the top of the next one.  I think there was a small hissing sound.  It's hard to tell from inside the car, you know.  We unloaded the car--chairs, a blanket, water.

We walked down to the ball field, opened the chairs and began to make our nest.  After a bit my husband decided to go to the store for peanuts.  I stayed in my chair.

Several minutes came and went.  It certainly was taking a long time to get those peanuts, I thought.  Eventually he returned.  I noticed that his hands were really dirty.  Almost black.  They were perfectly clean when he left on the trip for peanuts.   Maybe he stopped to help some little old lady with a flat tire.  He is that kind of guy.

He said after he left the parking lot, he heard a thud, thud, thud sound.  He was able to manuver the car into a bank lot.  Guess what he discovered?  You are correct.  A flat tire.  In about ten minutes he had it off, and the spare installed.

Trying to squirm out of blame, I suggested that the makers of the barriers had made a mistake in design.  Each barrier has a sharp edge.  It would have been much safer to have rounded those edges.  And why were they separated by six or more inches?  Why not butt them up against one another?  Had they been installed end to end, I could have driven off with no problem.  Yes, it was definitely a design flaw.

It seems the four inch hole in the tire cannot be repaired.  Guess we will need to purchase a new tire.  Just last weekend we had to have the car towed due to a dead battery.   Do things really come in threes??