Meet Benoit Denizet-Lewis, the world’s best parallel parker. (Or so he claims. We’re skeptical.)
It is with profound humility that I tell you about my extraordinary parallel parking skills. If there was an annual honorarium given to the world’s best parallel parker, or perhaps an Olympic event devoted to the practice, you would be foolish to bet against me.
I discovered my gift at 15. “Okay, let’s practice parallel parking,” my dad said, sweating in the passenger seat of his 80’s model BMW as he tried to teach me how to drive. It had not been a good morning. Minutes before, while stopped on a particularly egregious San Francisco hill, I’d nearly bulldozed the car behind us when I’d failed to pop the clutch.
But I soon proved to be a parallel parking prodigy, gliding with ease into spaces large and small. Friends started calling me to parallel park their cars for them. I developed a well-deserved reputation. “You’re really talented!” a girl I had a crush on told me.
Was I ever! In the DMV parking lot for my driving test, I practically begged the instructor to let me parallel park. Instead, he ordered me to back the car up in a straight line. “Fine,” I mumbled, glancing in my rear-view mirror (but failing to look over my shoulder) before jerking the car backward and nearly ending the lives of a young couple walking behind the car. That was the end of that. I’d failed the test in record time.
I was mortified. My dad was pissed. “Your parallel parking brilliance didn’t help you much there,” he huffed as he drove us out to dinner after the debacle. As we arrived at the restaurant, a small spot (one requiring parallel parking skills that my dad simply did not possess) opened up right in front. He eyed the space warily. I looked at him and grinned. “Maybe you should let me get that,” I told him. He hesitated (was he really going to let his 15-year-old show him up?), but he was hungry enough to defer to my expertise. I proudly took his spot in the driver’s seat and deftly slid the car in one fluid motion into its temporary resting place.
Was I born with this breathtaking ability? I suspect so. It’s one of the few practical things I do well. Change a tire? Forget it—I’m calling AAA. But parallel park into a spot so small, so daunting, that it would frighten most everyone else away? I can do that.
What’s my secret? Well, for one thing, I’m a man. A German study proved what most men already knew—women aren’t very good parkers. But I’m also better than most men. I can’t tell you why. It just is what it is. (Other things that I’m great at that I can’t explain and that start with the letter P: Ping pong. Pretense. Profanity.)
Want to learn how to parallel park like a champ? This video is a good place to start. Whatever you do, don’t do what the guy below does. And don’t do this. And, for crying out loud, don’t try this at home. Even I can’t do that.
Pretty damn funny. The 2 links in the last paragraph are hilarious. The last one is just jaw droppingly awesome. I wonder if you watch it often enough and get into an alpha state if you can trick your subconscious into learning how it’s done? I can dream, can’t I? 😉
I’m an ace PPer. We’ll have a standoff someday: Taylor Street in SF in the rain or Boylston in Boston in the snow. Someone can bring a video camera and a stop-watch. Fun piece!