Canton Writes 2017: Best in Show

By Guest

The Canton Citizen, a sponsor of the annual Canton Writes contest, will once again publish the winning entries as space permits. The selection below, by Andrew Capraro, was the winning entry in the adult short nonfiction/memoir category and was also named Best in Show for 2017.

The Slippery Slope of Cynicism

By Andrew Capraro

Like many people who live in the suburbs and need to commute into the city for work, I have a routine. Every morning I get up at 5:15, in hopes of leaving the house by 5:45, and just beating the relentless traffic into the city. Even leaving at that ridiculous time, at best, it takes 45 minutes to travel the 17 miles into work. It’s a daily ordeal, a wonderful reminder that we should despair for humanity. My work day usually begins at 7:30, which leaves me 45 minutes to drink a coffee, read some email, and prepare for the day.

Canton Writes founder Kathy Fox Alfano presents the Best in Show award to Andrew Capraro.

As I have my routine, I am surrounded by many who must have similar routines, people who pull into the parking garage at the same time as me. And if I lost faith in humanity during the drive, they push me into full on misanthropy. I know these people only from their parking quirks and frankly they infuriate me.

There is ‘In-Acura-te’ (read inaccurate) who simply cannot park without having one side or the other of his car land right on top of the white line demarcating the parking space. Whoever parks next to him, so they can exit their car, needs to mirror ‘In-Acura-te’s bad parking job. Thus, ‘in-Acura-te’ is the first domino of a line of bad parking, which inevitably makes the last parking space unusable. This is one of the most basic skills taught in driving school yet this man can’t park, instead setting up others for failure.

There is ‘Back the Truck Up,’ a woman who drives a huge Chevy hemi which looks like it should be on a construction site, not in a hospital garage. It looks the size of a small boat, pushing the spatial boundaries of a normal parking space. But to make things worse, this woman feels compelled to back the truck up into the parking space so she can easily drive out when she leaves. But it isn’t easy to park such an aircraft carrier of a truck backwards. She needs to move in and out multiple times to align things. As she is doing this vehicular ballet, the incoming cars can’t get past her, delaying everyone who is trying to get into work. This is inconsiderate. This woman places her desire for a simpler end to her workday over the beginning of others’ day.

Then there is ‘Wrong Way Sebring,’ who drives the wrong way in the one-way back row of the garage as a way to try and get into a spot closer to the elevator than the people who he is behind. It is a childish move, basically trying to cut the line. But worse, because he is going the wrong way, he has to try and back into a reverse-angled parking space, recreating the horrific dance of ‘Back the Truck Up.’ Watching him struggle to reverse park against the grain is agony. Is it really worth it, to break a simple rule like this?

And finally there is ‘The Gremlin Lady.’ This middle-aged woman drives the garage like it is the Indy 500, screeching around corners at high speeds, tailgating the person she is behind, and revving her engine at the gate. There is no reason for this drag racing behavior in a claustrophobic garage. This isn’t ‘Grease’ and it won’t get her anywhere that much faster.

She is the person I interact with the most, our routines near identical. We are often exiting our cars at the same time, relatively close to each other. She wears a cloying, overly flowery perfume. She wears innumerable charm bracelets and bangles such that she sounds like the world’s largest set of keys jingling. If she was a Harry Potter monster she would come with the tagline, ‘You’ll hear her and smell her before you see her.’

Now nothing will make you question life like horrible driving skills paraded in front of you ad infinitum. I began to really loathe these people.

But then something enlightening happened.

I had a meeting at work and arrived at an office suite where who should greet me? The Gremlin Lady. She was an administrative assistant and led me to the conference room where the meeting was happening. She was so nice and polite to me. Her co-workers all said hi to her as we passed their desks. She was hardly a Harry Potter monster. As I sat down she said, ‘I recognize you. We park around the same time.’

And suddenly it hit me.

I am not only an observer of human foibles in that garage. I am observed as well.

What does she think of me? Am I ‘sigh guy’ for all the exasperated sighs I give when surrounded by idiots? Or ‘eye roll man’ for how I react to inane things I see? Or am I simply the ‘weirdo with the Superman lunch box?’ Am I as big an offender of society to them as they are to me?

Do these minor parking indiscretions warrant the ire that simmered in me every morning? Do their parking adventures really impact my life in a way that deserved my internal wrath? Did I not get into my office in time for a coffee and email? Maybe I shouldn’t be asking, ‘What is wrong with them?’ Maybe I should be asking, ‘What is wrong with me?’

It is the slippery slope of cynicism, that slow decline into looking for the worst in people instead of recognizing their best. And it is a horrible, dark, tarry place to wallow.

Since this revelation, I have tried to be better. I have tried to live and let live. We all are plodding away with our daily grind.

Maybe we shouldn’t curse jingling charm bracelets, lamps being left on, slow baristas, people who sip their drinks loudly, people who park badly, and all the other small things that irk us.

Maybe instead we should be celebrating each other.

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