A Clown Car Full o' Lesbians (Happy New Year!)

My friend Amy hosts a glorious New Year's Day brunch every year in her Park Slope apartment. It takes a good 45 minutes on the N/R to get there, so I take the car. "Park Slope" is a misnomer, as there is never any parking to be had.

So we drive by her apartment, and we see two young women standing next to their car.

Are they getting out?

It's too good to be true.

It's RIGHT in front of the apartment.

In New York, as I'd imagine in many big, crowded, parking-sparse cities, there is a universal, unspoken, body language that takes place between people looking for parking and people who HAVE parking.

There's one girl by the driver's side, and one by the passenger's side. Both are wearing standard-Park Slope-Lesbian-Food Coop-Non-meat-eating attire: low-slung colored khakis, no makeup, rubber earrings, short cropped hair, sweatshop-free t-shirts that are wrinkly, but not too wrinkly.

I motion to the girl near the driver's seat in that way that can only mean "are you staying or going?" and the girl gives me this unwarranted stare that can only be read "how DARE you oppress me by asking me for this spot, you BREEDER?"

I figure she just doesn't speak the language.

So I back up a drop, and make eye contact with the passenger-side lesbian and ask her the same mimed question. I roll down the window a bit and she motions back this wishy-washy response, not a yes or a no, but the same kind of response you would give someone who just asked for directions to a place you vaguely remember having been to once.

She says, with a huff and a sigh, "Well, we're going to TAKE a while."

They had to clean out the car, and I very OVER-politely explain that we'll wait and they should take their time.

And take their time they did.

The two now-disgruntled lesbians now start cleaning out their itty-bitty car, which had more stuff in it than I keep in my apartment. They take out three HUGE jugs of water, piles of clothing, shoes, an empty tampon box (I kid you not) and god knows what else. They are taking forever. And making no eye contact whatsoever.

Now four more women, all donning the same lesbian uniform (were they going to a rugby match?!?) come out and start hugging and kissing each other. One plays a bit with the volleyball that was taken out of the car. And they pile into the tiny car, the clown car full o' lesbians.

They're finally leaving.

But they don't. It took them about a minute and a half, in their final act of defiance, to turn on the car, and about 15 maneuvers more than they needed to pull out of the spot, the one I so rightfully earned at this point.

Not a moment after getting out of the car, someone pulls up and motions "are you getting out?"

I flipped him off.

Happy New Year to the 3 people who read this blog 'o mine. May 2007 be full of stress-free parking and a great lack of subway delays.