“Dammit! I died!”

That's the fourth time now. Why the hell's this boss so goddamn difficult? And only because he's got that Nullify Healing ability. Did the developers not realize how overpowered that debuff is? I would've pulverized him into dust an hour ago if not for that.

“Screw you, Confiscator Jimmy!”

It'd probably be a great idea not to yell like that. I'm in a public place, after all. Though with the current population being me, you'd think this place was a ghost town.

I'm at my second job, because in this day and age, companies pay their employees in peanut shells, and a grown man can't live off of those, so a person's gotta take on multiple jobs just to have a fridge filled with something aside from nut shells. My second job is sitting on my ass playing video games.

Technically, my job is parking people's cars. Lazy assholes pull up, say, “Park my car for me, bitch,” and I dump their vehicle in the lot somewhere. That's it, that's my second job, and when there's no lazy assholes to park, there's just hours to kill.

“That must be a boring job, huh?”

Shows what you know, random dumbass. A job's only as boring as you make it, and I make it not boring by bringing a bag full of glorious entertainment, and this evening's entertainment is my beloved Switch. Best console Nintendo's pushed out ever. Video games are the best.

“Excuse me, sir, is the valet open?”

Nooooo, the valet's not open. I'm just sitting behind the podium in uniform in between the service hours plainly and clearly written out on the sign because I have nothing better to do with my sad little life.

Emergency room's on the other side, buddy. That's where you go to get treated for your brain cancer.

“Yes, the valet's open.”

“Oh, good! What do I need to do?”

The first step is to get the fuck out of your car. You expecting me to sit on your lap while I park this rickety tin can?

“I just need your phone number, and then you can go and do what you need to do.”

This is the typical interaction. Parking the car of some guy who gets outsped by tortoises. Hardly anything to it.

“You doing okay? Need a wheelchair or anything?”

“No, no, I'll make it, slowly but surely! Thanks for asking, though!”

Ye-huh. If you say so, buddy.

He's gone, out of my hands, so I get in his car to park it.

“Ick.”

And it's completely disgusting. Like, totally disgusting. Those mean the same thing, but goddamn, how else am I supposed to get the point across that this car is a dumpster on wheels?

He's got trash on the floor, more trash on the passenger seat, dried soda and food crumbs all over the console. He must live out of his car, because he's got all his possessions in the back seat. Smells awful in here, predictably. That gap where the windshield meets the dashboard is an insect graveyard. Poor guys. They deserved better than getting wedged in here.

This is why man invented rubber gloves. Or maybe a woman invented rubber gloves. Doesn't matter. They should know they changed the world for the better when they made it so that saps like me don't have to touch disease-ridden cesspits like this thing.

The kicker, though? This isn't the worst I've been in. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Let me tell you that story.

Right.

So.

I come into work one day, and there's this van sitting in front of the podium. Just sitting there as part of the scenery, like it belonged there. It wasn't even the handiwork of some asshole who thinks he can ditch his car wherever he goddamn please, either. It was ours, and I was peeved that the lazy motherfucker I was relieving didn't get off his ass to park it, so I asked him why he was such a lazy motherfucker, in so many words.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Just take a look inside.” He grabbed his things and was gone before I could do or say anything else. Acted like the van was gonna eat him if he didn't open the door just right. Acted like he was that one paranoid guy from a horror movie who warns the main character of a danger and then comes back later to gloat that they told them so when the main character gets their arm bitten off or something.

Let me tell you. The second I opened that van door I felt like I was in a horror movie.

It was a lot like the car I'm in now. Trash and belongings, dead bugs and half-eaten food. Stains. Stains everywhere! But that doesn't come close to describing the...repugnance of this van. The abject revulsion. The uncontested yuck factor. Anime sometimes likes being cute and censoring disgusting food and cockroaches with a mosaic. The interior of that guy's car should've been one giant mosaic. Maybe then I wouldn't have nightmares of it to this day.

I park the geezer's car, come back, and what do I find waiting for me? Another dickwad who wants his car parked. This one is just lazy. He's younger than me, but he's like, “Can you valet this?”

Can you park yourself?

I take his number, he fucks off, I drop into the driver's seat, and the most noxious stink literally assaults me. Another car that reeks. Smells like he was working out at the gym all morning.

There's a funny story to go with this stench. I've been in and out of plenty of cars with this exact stench. So many people turn their cars into dumpsters that it's not a far cry for a subgroup to not bathe regularly, so that's what I thought all these cars were. Disgusting sons of bitches afraid of hot water and a little soap.

Winter's colder than a witch's tit, so I stand inside the hospital entryway. It has a fancier name that begins with V, and the information lady used it once, but when I asked her to repeat it, she looked at me like I was speaking backwards Hungarian.

Anyway, I was standing inside the V-room one winter and it for whatever reason smelled like that bad B.O. It was terrible. Made me wanna cry. Everybody else thought it was terrible, too. Some of them shed some tears.

But then this one cleaning guy comes through. All right guy, not very smart. He gets a good whiff of the B.O., and he says to me, “Smell that? Know what that is?”

It was weed.

For all these years, I wasn't smelling rank mothers allergic to a bar of soap. It was people who got high off their asses when they were behind the wheel.

I once even got offered weed while on the job. I declined, but thinking back on it, maybe I should've taken him up on his offer. Would make dealing with customers 1000% more bearable.

*

A little while later, when I'm swimming through an endless sea of clouds, yet another rude asshole pulls me out of my immersion to have her car parked.

“Sorry my car's such a mess.” That's her final warning before she disappears inside.

Oh no...

What am I gonna find inside? Is it a giant pile of dirty laundry? Are there roaches running around on the roof? Is there a dead rat that's been there for so long that it's molded onto the carpet? Did she really have to go to the loo but couldn't make it to a bathroom in time, so she just dropped a log on the passenger seat?

I'm scared to go in this car. Mortified. Maybe I should write my will before I get in, just in case.

Ah, not like I have anything to give away. And to who? My mom? I think she'd be better off not knowing about some of the reading material her son hid while she's delivering my eulogy. Maybe she already has a clue. And yet she loves and accepts me anyway. I should give her a call when I get off from work.

Okay. Any last words before I sacrifice myself to the greater good of parking cars? Yeah, I wish I had gotten to have at least one girlfriend in my life.

Time to stop with the pussyfooting and accept my crappy destiny.

I reach for the door handle.

I open the door.

I gulp, wince in preparation for the stank that'll waft into my nostrils, knock me out cold, bring my heartbeat to a stop—

“...”

The car's fine.

Perfectly, totally fine.

She has her mail thrown on the passenger seat.

There's a box in the back.

I think that's a shirt hanging off the seat.

Other than that, there's nothing else wrong with it. The car's not immaculate. It's not like she drove it fresh off the dealership lot, but for what it is, it's a fairly clean car.

“I wish this was as dirty as cars got.”

I'd love to hear how she'd describe the trash bins I've been in. Then again, dirtiness has gotta start somewhere.

“Hiya, sonny! I'm ready!” It's the old man, back for his mobile dumpster. Good. He can have it back. I don't want it.

I go, I fetch it, and he gets in.

“Thank you so much. Are you allowed to accept tips?”

“We are.” You'd better tip me as an apology and thanks for making me drive that filthy thing.

He reaches into his wallet and hands me two one dollar bills.

$2.

That's right.

I put up with biohazards.

For two measly dollars.