In Reverse

    I hate backing my car up.  Even when there is no apparent obstruction anywhere in sight, I still half expect to hear, and feel, that fateful impact.  I have not backed into anything in years, but the thought is always there.  A long time ago, I backed into a tree in front of a friend's house.  I wasn't driving fast, but I remember feeling my teeth gnash together.  I have a memory of backing into some huge concrete barrier at the edge of the parking lot of the old J.M. Fields store in Lansingburgh, also a teeth rattler, but no reportable damage of any kind. Not too many years ago, I backed into the bumper of a truck that had pulled in behind me in the front of the Clifton Park Pizza Hut.  He wasn't there, and then he was.  It was just a gentle tap, but the driver glared at me.
   Probably the worst backing up event was a near miss.  I almost backed up into a passenger who had just gotten out of my car to retrieve her belongings from the trunk of my car to place them in hers.  She was rather annoying and I was in kind of a rush to be done with her and get on home, though I didn't wish her dead or anything.  In my defense, I'll say that I didn't know she was going to make two trips.  And do you know how hard it is to  see when the trunk of your car is raised?  It blocks out the light, and you see just emptiness, as if no one is there. Anyway, she was fine.
     When I bought the car I have now, the salesman wanted me to test drive their latest model, the one with all the bells and whistles, including the then highly touted back-up camera. When we returned from the test drive, he insisted that I  back up to the front of the display window of the business, so I could see how efficient the back-up camera was, giving me a clear picture of the path I was taking.  With much trepidation, disguised as well as possible, I did as he directed, thinking all the time that he wouldn't be so blase about it if he knew the reality of the situation.  The reality being that my depth perception is somewhat compromised by a congenital corneal condition.  I have pretty much learned to accommodate to the dysfunction, but not when it involves mirrors or backing.I stopped in time, right in front of the plate glass window, and he never suspected a thing.  I didn't buy a car with that feature though.
    Today, I drove into the crowded parking lot of a busy restaurant in Mechanicville, the kind of lot where vehicles are parked at asymmetric angles. I parked in the only spot available, but when I went to leave, one of those large black monster vehicles was parked behind me, and I couldn't turn either right or left to drive out frontwards.  I had to back all the way out, trying to see around the massive black vehicle, and not sure when I could turn the wheel.  I was gingerly doing my best when the kindest gentleman in the world stopped on his way into the restaurant to tell me that he was going to help me back out.  He did so, and I instantly fell in love with him, and his curly-headed grandson too.