Reykjavík Grapevine - Jun 2023, Page 38

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Musings HELP!
I am stuck in a parking lot again
WORDS Charlie Winters
IMAGE Art Bicnick
The husks of empty cars lie
silent and unmoving. The painted
lines meet in jagged corners mark-
ing acceptable parking spots. How
did I get here again? Why does this
keep happening? Whose muddy
footprints are these? Have others
been lost within the dark asphalt
plains?
Over the past few months, I, an adult
with a fully developed frontal lobe,
have gotten stuck in nine separate
parking lots. And when I say stuck,
I mean absolutely lost, not being
able to find the exit and having to
clamber over a fence while amused
locals gawk. This problem with
parking places has led to ridicule
from friends and family who seem
baffled by how this is even possible,
especially since I don’t own a car. I
believe it has something to do with
the parking lots, it can’t just be me.
Right? Let’s look at the numbers.
Any proper scientific research
regarding the accurate mapping of
infrastructure always starts at the
same place: Google Maps. Look-
ing up parking lots in the Reykjavík
area gives us forty-seven different
potential locations to get stuck in.
Taking the population of the city into
account, that’s 0.00038 parking lots
per capita – an avoidable amount.
The solution is simple, mark out
every single one and avoid them
like locals avoid clothes in summer.
My plan was working for a while.
I’ve dexterously avoided the great
mounds of Iceland University of the
Arts. I’ve resisted the temptation of
the free parking near the harbour. I’ve
even defeated the Kringlan twins of
terror, whose bridge has confused
many a wandering traveller. Things
were going well.
It had not been a week before I was
stuck in the lot of the State Police
Office overlooking Sæbraut. The
view is nice, but the fence gave me
splinters, I give it 7/10. Evidently,
Google Maps doesn’t mark out pri-
vately owned parking spaces. This
complicates my initial numbers.
Taking into account the many build-
ings across Reykjavík and adjusting
for parking spaces according to the
number of businesses in the region
gives us a fuck ton of places per
capita that my dumbass can get
stuck in. This makes the problem
unavoidable.
If they are in fact unavoidable, per-
haps I must instead train myself to
escape them. And who better to
learn from than other successful
runaways? In many of the parking
lots I’ve been stuck in, there are
foot prints. They’re especially easy to
track in mud and snow. Like Ariadne
of the legends of old, they have left
me trails of twine to escape these
labyrinthian spaces. Following their
footprints, I can deduce their meth-
ods of escape and learn their se-
crets. Soon I shall be able to leave
parking lots without embarrassment.
Wait… All the footprints lead to the
fences. They all just hopped the
fences. No one knows how to get
out. It’s hopeless. I’m going to spend
the rest of my life on stretches of
asphalt watching the paint fade
under the wear and tear of unneces-
sarily large jeeps. Iceland’s car-cen-
tricity has doomed me to a paved
existence.
If you are reading this, I need help.
I am trapped in a lot near Hlemmur.
I’m too short to climb over the bars.
Please, somebody, come get me
out of here. It’s been days now and
I have to get home. I already missed
Eurovision.