Driving in NYC

I played Trivia with my girlfriends last night at one of the restaurants in town that host those games. We are a varied lot of women from all walks of life, so we might know the answer to a wide range of subjects.  I got to contribute to one of the questions with one of my 'little known facts about Deanne's life' episodes and when they asked how sure I was about the answer, my response was "all the points sure".

My first job out of college was working for a consumer products company, travelling the state of Kansas, calling on pharmacies, card and gift shops and chain drug stores.   I was on the fast track and was promoted 4 times in 5.5 years, with my last position being the Director of Retail Stores. The stores were located in shopping malls, downtowns and stand alone locations and many were nearing the end of their leases. This was the late 80's and the shopping mall was king. Rents were skyrocketing and our little stores were becoming less and less profitable. As we made the decisions to close locations as opposed to renewing leases, I had the responsibility to help close the stores with going out of business sales and selling the store fixtures.

Last night, as I heard the trivia question, I recalled a trip to New York City to close one of those stores, and the episode of getting my car towed in downtown Manhattan, roughly 5th Avenue and 42nd St, around the corner from Radio City Music Hall. I was terrified. I'm a Kansas girl and I was heading to the Big Apple, where I've been told scary things happen and traffic is ridiculous. Imagine my delight in finding a parking space on the street close to the store! I looked around, trying to find any signage that might indicate a problem with where I was parking, but only spied a No Standing sign. Whew, I thought-good thing I'm not going to stand here and went on my way. No Standing means just that, but it also means No Parking in NYC. My rental car was gone along with all of the other cars on that block and I had no idea where it was or how to get it back. So I embarked on an adventure, hailing a traffic cop for directions, travelling via taxi to the car lot, and standing in line-an extremely long line, watching humanity at its less than finest. I was called a bitch, which escalated to f*ing bitch all because a person didn't feel like going to the back of the line and I wasn't inclined to let her cut in front of me. The smirk on my face and the rooted to the ground stance I took probably didn't help either.

I grew up a little that day, learned to be self sufficient and responsible. I learned to laugh at my naivete and toughened up mentally. I found that most people, no matter where they live, are decent and want to help and that we all get irritated by the messiness of life. Oh, and by the way, the trivia question? Which borough of New York is Battery Park located? Answer-Manhattan-that car tow lot is located across from there.