Parking Lot’s the Perfect Place to Dispense Some Wise-Guy Justice

There’s road rage and air rage, and now here’s garage rage:

I park in a lot where the cars outnumber the spaces. So when you can’t find a space, you park in the aisle and give your key to an attendant.

This isn’t rocket science. There’s just one, simple, sacred rule: Give the attendant your key.

We pick up the story on a day when I have an appointment and my car is being blocked by another car parked in the aisle.

I go to the attendant and ask him to move the car so I can get to my appointment--nothing of great importance, really, just my one chance to undergo a lifesaving organ transplant.

“I can’t move the car,” the attendant tells me. “I have no key.”

“You have to have a key. Everyone leaves a key,” I say. “That’s the rule. Leave the key. The guy didn’t leave you his key?”

“Not today,” the attendant says.

Not today? What, is this guy on the “alternate day” plan? Is he going to wander by and drop off the key tomorrow?

“Is there some way to contact the guy and get him to move his car?” I asked, trying to maintain a certain level of calm. By “a certain level,” I mean something short of twitching and foaming at the mouth.

The attendant shrugged. He looked at the guy’s sticker and tried to match the number to a master list. Not there.

“Do you know the guy?” I asked.

“Yes, he is a bald man.”

“That’s all we have to go on?”

Great. Michael Jordan is blocking my car.

The attendant called his supervisors. They took a look at the car, wrote some stuff down. And left. They waved pleasantly on their way out. I knew they’d get to it immediately. Maybe even right after lunch.

I began to stew. And by “stew,” I mean “simmer at high temperature until done.” Ten minutes went by. Then 20. Then 30, 40 and 50. I looked at the car. It was a cheap piece of junk. I thought about getting into my car and plowing into this tiny tin can, knocking it over on its back like a turtle. Nah. Too genteel. As I pondered revenge strategies, I began to think . . . W.W.T.S.D.

What Would Tony Soprano Do?

Would he, for example, take out a baseball bat and smash all the windows of this car?

Would he have four tough, brawny individuals with what Dr. Melfi might call “personality disorders” physically pick up the car, put it on a tow truck, tow it to a boat, take it out to sea and turn it into a home for carp?

Would he have Paulie Walnuts whack the guy?

Would Tony whack the guy himself? Or would Tony show his sensitive side and simply knee the guy in the groin, then rip out his liver and feed it to pedigreed Pomeranians?

As I thought about how great it would be to actually be Tony Soprano--and we’re both fat, bald guys named Tony with anger-management issues, and our friends call us “T,” so it’s not that big a stretch, except for the fact that he is a fictional character, and, as such, has much better dialogue than I have, not to mention a hot, psycho girlfriend--a bald man came toward the parking garage attendant.

“Whose car am I blocking?” he asked the attendant.

“Mine,” I said.

The man walked right past me toward his car. He got into his car, started it and called to me, “I owe you big time.” Then he called out a four-digit number that I assumed was his extension at work.

Like I should call him.

For what? So we could go to a karaoke bar?

I mean, he blocks me; he breaks the One Rule in the lot by not handing in his key; it’s 50 minutes until he gets to his car to move it; I miss my organ transplant; he doesn’t say he’s sorry; he just tosses off a number that may or may not be his extension. I don’t even know his name. And I didn’t write down the number. What should I have written it down in, the blood that was pouring out of my eyeballs from waiting 50 minutes for this guy to move his car?

And now if I want to pursue this matter I should call him?

I should call him?

I should call Tony Soprano. Tony Soprano should call him. Bada-bing!