All in a Day’s Park

SHAUN HAMBLY pairs insight and delight in his weekly ahas. Take this properly English offering, quaintly titled MAN PARKS IN EVERY PARKING SPACE AT LOCAL SUPERMARKET AS PART OF SIX-YEAR PERSONAL MISSION. And the aha has it all, y’all. Intrigue. Whimsy. A grim portrait of suburban excitement, or a tickling look at how to entertain within the mundane? Why not both!

The strapping suburban hero of our story is Gareth Wild, who begins his Twitter thread with an intrepid setup. “For the last six years I’ve kept a spreadsheet listing every parking spot I’ve used at the local supermarket in a bid to park in them all,” he writes. “This week I completed my Magnum Opus!”

An opus! Our protagonist heads on his hero’s journey: lock in one (1) new spot at his local car park during his weekly grocery trip. The drama is high. The stakes are soaring. And the odyssey delivers.

We’re taken on a twisting journey through the Bromley Sainsbury’s car park, with stops across the zigs and zags of its gridded parking spots. There are satellite-enabled mapping systems and terrible trackways, counted-and-categorized space structures and a color-coded guide to the best and the worst of the bay. Wild whizzes through the traps of the trolley system and impatient children in the back seat. The result: a half-decade of adventure, slowly making his way to leave no space unparked.

“My life is one long roller coaster,” our hero mulls, looking directly at the camera. Indeed, with a bit of inventiveness, a sprinkling of zest amid the prosaic, maybe all of ours could be, too.