COMPACT.

Easily half of the spaces in the parking deck outside my office building are marked "COMPACT." And that word is routinely ignored, as cars which are not COMPACT are frequently parked in those spaces. I would be irritated at every gargantuan SUV in a COMPACT space, if not for the fact that my car actually is COMPACT, and I can't park it correctly at the deck. I think I've hit the sweet spot in between the parallel yellow lines maybe once or twice in the few months that I've been parking here. Usually, I'm over on one side or another. And so I decided that it was not the SUV owners who were stupid, but the people who painted the parking lines.

The system seems very inefficient to me. There's so much double-parking that many spaces are rendered useless by the vehicle parking next door. It seems like they could have easily given us all a few more inches per spot and saved a lot of trouble.

I used to park on the first floor. There were usually several spaces on that level when I arrived in the morning, all of them COMPACT. But see, this was when I still naively believed in the COMPACT spaces and my right to park there.

One day, I went out to my COMPACT car and found it to be COMPACTED. There was a sizeable dent on my left back bumper where I had not put one. True, I had put a hideous scratch there years ago, but the dent completely obscured that. What I did not see was a friendly note on my windshield that said, "Hello there! Sorry, I'm a dolt and I've gone and ruined your hideous scratch by putting a big dent in it. Please call my insurance agent." I found no note at all. I left work that day feeling very bitter about the COMPACT spaces, the parking deck, and the human race in general. I considered checking all the other cars in the deck for traces of my paint color, but decided against it.

I don't care about the dent. Yes, it is unsightly, but my car is a functional piece of equipment. When I do finally trade her in, it will be because her engine does not run or because her transmission has exploded, not because of superficial damage. But, man, what a jerk. It pisses me off to know that I am probably continuing to park alongside this bonehead, and that he smiles a special jerk smile every time he passes by my marred bumper.

It's time like these that I like to believe in karma, because it makes me feel better when other people get away with being lousy to think that they will get their comeuppance. Congratulations, sir, you have cheated consequence this time, but it will come around and bite you in the hindquarters some day. Then you will complain about the big jerk who ran into your car and did not even leave a note, the scum. You will lose faith in human nature.

I was comforting myself with the idea of karma when I realized that maybe the event was already an example of karma. Maybe I was being repaid by the universe for some wrong I had done someone else. I didn't remember doing anything, but I'm certainly not dismissing the possibility that I was a jerk at some point. Now I can't even look at that big, stupid dent on my car without wondering fearfully what the heck I did to deserve it.

I park on the third floor now, regardless of how many open COMPACT spaces are on the first floor. I secretly hope the extra walking is causing me to lose weight. The spaces are still very tiny up on the third level, but the people don't seem so intent on squeezing their Yukons or Escalades or whatever into the closest open space to the entrance. I never did see a car with my paint color flaking off, nor did I ever figure out what I had done to merit my big dent. Karma's fine, but sometimes people are just jerks.