A narrow scrape, or "Look before you leap"

I haven't had the heart to write about it until now, but...I got the first dings on my car the other day.  Sigh.

I was parked in a little alley behind our building that our dear neighbors had recommended.  My darling car fitted perfectly in the corner, and everything was great.  However, the way I had gone in was a wee bit tight (a couple of inches of clearance on either side), and I decided to go the other way out of the alley.  I knew that there was a 90 degree turn because I had come in that way on a previous occasion.

Somehow, this particular time the turn looked particularly daunting because of the stairs right in the way of where I would need to reverse to complete the turn.  So I decided to follow the alleyway straight, thinking that I knew where it turned out: on a beautiful road that overlooks the valley.  Boy, was I ever wrong!  I continued down about 10 meters, and then came through a tiny passage with stairs on one side and a pipe on the other.  Less than an inch of clearance on either side, but I made it through!

Congratulating myself inwardly, I went another 30 meters down the steep incline (which was wider), and then found myself at another intersection.  My two choices: forward, down steps with a railing and (probably) no clearance, or another (even tighter) 90 degree turn into an alley that was completely blocked by a car. Stunned in disbelief, I sat a few moments to contemplate, while Jeremy peppered me with questions: what should we do now? Which way would we go? What did I think about it?

With a vulcan death grip on the steering wheel with one hand, I revved the engine to prepare to go into reverse (remember the steep incline?  This time I had the opportunity to go up it!), engaged the clutch, and dropped the hand brake.  I just couldn't get the right line on going in reverse, and kept getting too close to the wall on the passenger side.

Three meters back and two meters forward.  I crept up and up and up.  After 20 minutes of hard labor (remember, low speeds, in reverse, no power steering) and a break, I made it to an area that was a little wider -- just downhill from the bottleneck (remember the pipe & the stairs?).  I had a halfhearted plan to attempt to turn around, but wasn't convinced.

At that point, a sweet looking woman around my age popped her head out of an upstairs window and asked if I needed help.  When I said that it would be great, she responded with the Italian equivalent of "bummer, because I can't do any better than you." So -- not only was she of no help, but now I had an audience.  At this point, I just wanted to put my head down & cry. So I sat for a minute to regroup.

Just what I needed: two men in their early 60s walked by -- even more members of my personal peanut gallery.  My purgatory intensified...

Ding!  The light bulb turned on.  I leant over and asked whether they were good drivers.  One of them responded in the affirmative.  As I hopped out gratefully and he started to jump in, I had second thoughts; I asked cautiously if he was familiar with the 500s.  "Drove one for 20 years!" he responded. I nearly fainted with relief.

No kidding: after about 45 seconds, he had squeezed my baby through the narrow gap, completed the 90 degree turn I'd wanted to avoid, and pulled it out to the main road.  My hero!

The sad ending was that I got some scratches and a dent on my baby.  My guilt was enormous until I talked to my friend Ada Maria at the nursery: I told her that it had gone 45 years without a scratch.  She responded with a shrug, "Well, then it's about time it had one."

The moral of the story is that I will never ever ever ever ever drive down an alley unless I have recently walked it.

Love,

Alexandra

p.s. The girls' friend Bushi took out the dent with a highly specialized tool: a handy rock.  There's not much I can do about the paint, but I'm going to take it to a shop before deep winter so it doesn't rust.