In Taiwan, many apartment buildings have mechanical parking structures. This helps to increase the number of parking spaces in a very tight area. So, what can usually hold three cars can now hold five cars -- using these mechanical parking structures, two cars are down below. Sometimes, two cars can be up above. The spaces that are either down below or up above have very tight limitation. Hence, one must be very careful when buying a car.
We have Space #64, which is a down space. Our car barely makes it when another car is called 'up'. Recently we rented Space #19 so that our friends can have a space to park their car. Since our space is more convenient, I let them have Space #64 while I parked our car in Space #19. This was also so that we can avoid any problems when asked about the rental as people who park in our complex must live in here. But we can now say we're letting them use our space.
All this to say that yesterday, I was called by our security guard who was in a panic. When Space #20 called tried to get their space up, the mechanical structure stopped because... are you ready for this?... our car was not able to clear the height and the structure got stuck, half way across the roof of our car!!!!!! They had to call the maintenance man to come and hand-cranked the contraption in order to get the structure moving again.
And the roof of our car... scratched up! It looked really bad at first. But I've been praying and waxing it. Today, Abby looked and said she couldn't see the scratches. Well, if you look really closely, you can. But it has definitely improved since yesterday.
I didn't want to blog about it until I talked to Alan. And we were able to skype this morning. Now, we really have to think about what space to buy if we want to buy another space. Not all "bottom" spaces have the same height limitation. It's amazing that for the past 10 years, our car, which is in a bottom space, has never had any problem.
So, now our car is back in Space 64 and our friends are in Space 19. And our friends went out today. Upon returning, the wife lined me and said, "Wow, that is a very tight space!" Yes, it takes a lot of skill to get the car parked in properly. All this has been a learning experience because we will have to be more cautious when choosing a space to buy. They are NOT all the same size or the same height! Glad we found out now. And Alan and I know that it's only 'things'... but we just always want to be good stewards of all that God has given us. So, we like keeping our 'new' car looking relatively new with no dents or scratches. It was a bit of a shock when I first saw the piece of steel stuck in the middle of our car roof... I had no idea how badly it was scratched. Very shocking to see!
Seek Him First!
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