Perfect Plan

My plan was to get to my car by nine this morning—I had parked in a Tuesday-Friday 9:30-11 A.M. spot, having buzzed with no success my two favorite spots when I got home last night at eight. I made a brilliant U-turn on a major crosstown thoroughfare (saving precious minutes), and peeked into the Sanctuary, where an S.U.V. had just scored a spot, and a van was trying to squeeze into a space in front of two motorcycles (I could see that no good was going to come of that). When I turned down the street that was my main chance, on the block ahead I recognized the flashing lights of the street sweeper. So far, so good. Traffic was blocked ahead, in part, no doubt, because of my fellow-parkers, and I sat through two red lights before traffic started to flow again. I might have had to slow things down by creeping along on the Tuesday-Friday side, hoping there was still room for me, but, joy of joys, the first car on the left had generous space behind it, and I was able to coast into place, right in front of a doorman building. Perfect.

Strangely, while I was sitting in the car I got a call on my cell phone from a man I talked to last summer at the ferry meeting in Brooklyn’s Manhattan Beach. He kept apologizing for taking my time, but he couldn’t have called at a better moment: for the next hour, I had nothing but time. It seems he will be offering an alternative ferry ride at some point. I told him I was definitely interested, and I am (even though I am not commuting from Rockaway right now). When we were through talking, I turned to the Times and read about the big sticker crisis: apparently the glue was defective on two million registration stickers that the Department of Motor Vehicles sent out, and on another two and a half million inspection stickers, and people are getting ticketed for not displaying their stickers properly, and complaining bitterly.

Later, walking up the block, I noticed that more than half of the vehicles with New York State license plates did indeed show, as the Times reporter Danny Hakim put it, “signs of profound registration sticker distress.” I recommend transparent packing tape, the same kind I used for holding my right headlight in place, until my new mechanic refitted it with a judicious screw. It never occurred to me that the glue was defective. I thought it was my windshield.

I hope it is not against the law to have a moose bobblehead (upstaged in this picture by the street art in the background; I'll have to remember to take a picture of that when I go back to move the car on Friday). The moose is good company on a long trip. He bobs his head in time to the music and agrees with everything I say.