We’re down the the Final Four here in our Gloucester Clam Tournament of Shitty Parking Lots. This is where the shit gets real, folks. We’re so close to crowning the winner that I can almost taste it. “It” being the paint scraped from my bumper. Let’s get down to business and nominate our finalists!
7/11 Bass Ave vs. Our Lady of Good Voyage Church
7/11 Bass Ave beat out St. Peter’s Square. Let that just sink in for a moment. We here at the Clam honestly thought St. Peter’s could have gone all the way and won the whole thing, what with its drunken weekend revelers, confusing entrance/exit strategies, and demand exceeding capacity. However, apparently 7/11 Bass Ave is even worse to our intrepid voters. That’s a fair assessment. The less-heroin-infested 7/11 a fucking awful shitshow not only for the poor drivers waiting fortnights to back out into at-speed traffic, but also for those heading back downtown on Bass Ave. As a cyclist who rides the backshore and heads home, I flinch instinctively when I ride past this lot. Undoubtedly, there’s always some huge truck with a throaty exhaust that just backs up at top speed without actually checking to see if there’s traffic in the road. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT RIGHT OF WAY MEANS, BUT CHECK OUT MY 40 INCH TIRES! VRUMMM!” Thanks, dickbag. Next time I’ll just pre-dial “9-1” on my phone before I drive by to save time.
Our Lady of Good Voyage Church advanced to the next round as well, beating out Gloucester Crossing. We sense a trend here – the parking lots that are bad not only to park in, but also to drive by, have been able to pull out wins in this round. And by God, trying to drive by lower Prospect when there’s church in session is pure madness. Why do we not ticket or tow the cars that ENTIRELY BLOCK THE WAY both on the sidewalk and on one of the busiest roads in town? Probably because everyone here is pretty much related by blood or marriage, and everyone’s been doing it for decades. I’m sure also that towing old ladies while they’re at church will probably get you run out of town by an angry mob with torches and fishing gear. We don’t deal well with change here, so maybe when my children’s children have grown, it will no longer be acceptable to just pull halfway up on the curb and leave your car there for an hour and a half instead of going a tenth of a mile to find a safe, legal spot. But probably not, this is Gloucester.
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Destino’s vs Dogbar
Another surprising winner, Destinos took out the East Gloucester School last round. I guess the animalistic need for a cheesesteak and haddock chowder runs deeper in our veins than an animalistic need to pick up our kids on time at all costs. Destino’s and our other finalist, Good Voyage, work together hand in hand to fuck up that entire stretch of Prospect Street, which honestly even without those external factors is fucked up enough in its own right. I shall refer to that area as a “fucktastrophe.” The Destino’s lot, however, tricks you, like a cruel minister of Satan. You can pull in, absolutely sure there’s an open spot, only to realize a blue-haired old lady has parked directly in the middle of two spots and now you’re stuck trying to back out onto Prospect, but church is in session (is it ever not in session) so you have to do a hail-mary backup at warp speed. Pray. Pray hard.
Dogbar’s public lot, our last finalist, beat out the pothole and Keno-laden Tedeschi’s parking lot to enter the Final Four. Each was undoubtedly equal in the number of completely shithammered people stumbling through at diagonal angles, but Dogbar only has one tiny entrance/exit, so if you enter naively thinking there might be a space and someone else makes the same horrific miscalculation, there’s a cascade effect of people stuck, beeping, backing up onto Rogers where people aren’t pitying you for your mistakes, scraped trailer hitches, and swearing. I vote that instead of Jaws as the last movie playing at our new outdoor theatre at I4-C2, we just roll surveillance footage highlights of this lot. It’s probably equally scary. We’re gonna need a bigger lot.
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The Dogbar Lot is so bad that I’ve never even tried to park in it.
If you run over church ladies while doing a Hail Mary backup out of Destino’s I am pretty sure that does not protect you from the flames of hell.
Crawling up the steps and confessing before expiring might get you a free pass at least that’s what the nuns said. (Unless it’s a Friday and you lost control because you had a large Italian with hots stuffed in your pie-hole.)
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