By Jim Nichols

“I’m a new driver,” she said plaintively. “Please help me. I don’t know how I did this, but I am afraid if I move the car anymore, I will scratch both. What will my father say?” 

She was panicked—waving her hands wide-eyed.

I had a meeting on the campus and was simply walking through the parking lot to the meeting building when she ran up to me. “I’m a new driver.” She continued to repeat that sentence. 

This parking lot has parallel angled spaces and, since the semester was in session, at this time of day others had filled every spot. This was the norm since the lot borders both class meeting buildings and residence halls for the college. When you find an open spot, you take it, which is what, apparently, she tried to do. But she is a new driver.

Since she was jumping up and down and frantic, I agreed to consider her situation, and she led me to her car.

She was, indeed, in a bad position. How she got there was a mystery to me. On the passenger side of her parked car were multiple feet; on the driver side, her car was nearly touching the adjacent car; there might have been ¼ inch between them. I avoided asking her how she had accomplished this; I did not want her to start crying. Her problem physically was that, although her car body was not contacting the adjacent car, the front tires of the two cars were in contact. It appears that she had been twisting and turning her car into the spot and had stuck her tire right up against the adjacent car’s tire.

Her vehicle was a fancy, new model, a shiny and perfect large SUV. What would her father say if she scratched it?

I asked her if she wanted me to try to move her car into a better position and she nearly leaped for joy (I am not making this up.)

Since the cars were so close, opening the driver’s door was impossible so I climbed in the passenger front door and crawled across the car. This is clearly how she got out of the car to chase me down.

Blocking from my mind what her father might say if I were to scratch this expensive vehicle, I started the engine and, without turning the steering wheel, slowly moved straight backward. Amazingly, the car moved and there was no sound of metal scaping metal. I continued backward until I had cleared the adjacent car and we were in the clear. She told me to park the car across the street where there were no others. “I am not coming back to this lot ever again,” she said.

She was jumping up and down again now at this remedy. “How did you know how to do that?” she asked. I replied, “You are a new driver, but I am an old driver.”

Life seems to be filled with “new driver” situations, does it not? Seldom does each of us fit into the “old driver” category, but we need to use such occasions for the benefit of others.

This was not a time to offer this student an object lesson, but I am sure that she knows some skills even at her age that I do not have. For example, if I had had her with me other times, I am certain that she could have unstuck my computer when it was balking. If I had asked her almost any question about my temperamental Iphone and its connection problems, she could have solved them in a breeze.

We are all new at some challenges. What we do not know, however, is what those next to us know already. So, we must ask. Nineteenth century American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Every artist was first an amateur.” 

I do not like being referred to as an amateur, but it is a fact, as all you other amateurs recognize. Call me if you have a parking problem.

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain