Sunday, January 25, 2009

Three-car garage

Not once in the history of humankind has a homeowner used the bastardized third slot of his three-car garage - the one that's partitioned off, separated from the traditional boundaries of the garage - to park a car. The third slot is used only as a cesspool to stockpile unnecessary garbage the owner deems unworthy of keeping inside the house yet too necessary to expunge to a landfill.

It's not that I fault people for never being able to park their cars in the third slot. Lord knows it's not worth the risk. The walls are so narrow it takes Luke Skywalker ability to navigate your vehicle to safety without sideswiping a wall. I've wondered aloud to just about everyone I've ever met why it is builders can't design three-car garages ultra-wide and partition free, and every time I've gotten the answer "that probably wouldn't be stable enough." I don't buy it. In this world of retractable-roofed football stadiums, Space Needles and Disney Concert Halls, someone out there must know how to sketch up a usable three-car garage.

I'm mystified at those who stack boxes upon boxes of worthless nonsense - Thighmaster atop exercise bike atop worn-out cardboard Costco crates. Most garages I see look exactly the same, crammed with unpacked boxes from three moves ago, beat-up mattresses and the like. They stand as monuments to careless excess.

This is coming from a packrat who still has every comic book he ever purchased when he was 15, more than 100,000 baseball cards and a box of mid-1980s Nintendo Powers. If I can find space enough inside my closets, underneath my bed and inside drawers for all that slop without sacrificing one my two sacred garage parking spots, there's no excuse for anyone to own a three-car garage and not find at least enough space to park two cars.

By the way, if I'm ever elected president of the United States this will be my first state of the union address.

2 comments:

Casa Villarreal said...

my baby.

dumbwhore said...

I couldn't agree with you more. What is the point of even a two car garage unless there are no beams, so you can pull cars/trucks in and service them when the weather is bad?

Let alone the people who waste space that is costing them tens of thousands dollars more over 30 years on complete and utter crap in boxes.