“Why on earth did my parents have to move here? There’s never enough goddam parking.” Gabriel muttered to himself coldly.
It was a wintery Sunday night in mid-January and Gabriel was heading to his parents’ place for dinner. His parents had just moved downtown not two weeks prior, having finally succumbed to the allure of the empty nest lifestyle and all that downtown Toronto had to offer. This, then, was to be Gabriel’s new “home”. Although the 25-year-old had never spent a night there in his life and probably never would, he knew that wherever his parents lived was his true home – everywhere else was just a lithe branch extending from the central tree trunk.
His parents’ new place was smack-dab in the middle of downtown TO and parking was nigh on impossible. Gabriel’s Law, however, ensures that anything that can go right will go right. So it just so happened that he was borrowing his roommate’s new Fiat 500 and that the little Italian runabout could fit in spaces normally reserved for strollers and tricycles; it’s smaller even than a snowflake. After a couple of fruitless loops around the block, a snug spot between a Dodge Journey and a Mitsubishi Lancer appeared right in front of his parents’ 20-storey tower as if by divine decree. Anything other than this back-up-sensor-equipped 500 would’ve kept driving in circles for another 30 minutes – even a Mini – but the Fiat just slid in like pesto linguini gliding into a contented mouth. Gabriel even pulled off the tight parallel park on his first try. Appropriately smug with his wheel-twirling achievement, Marco hopped out of the charming two-door, flicked the door shut behind him, locked the doors to the sound of the Fiat’s cheery horn, and buzzed up to #2000: the penthouse, and his new home.