THE PARKING GARAGE — We all know that parking gates are terrible.

Fumbling through your car for a ticket stub that seems to have vanished into thin air is no one’s idea of a good time.

Then there are the awkward, stressful interactions with the parking attendant in their booth as you try not to look too incompetent.

I once knew someone who had the gate arm crash down on her newly-purchased vehicle. She cried over her shattered windshield and left work early that day.

The rivalry between automobiles and parking gates has always been riveting, but the latest installment of this feud elevates the conflict to a whole new level.

At first, it seems as if the car has made it through the gate’s death grip unscathed, but then the driver daringly returns for round two.

I could relate to the possible problems of adjusting a manual transmission for an incline, but even I couldn’t mess it up this badly.

The arm lands a critical hit and shatters the back window, inflicting a sizeable amount of financial and emotional damage.

But the frustrated driver makes a crucial, strange decision to double down.

If he can’t defeat the gate, why not steal it?

He speeds away, gate arm bent, defeated and trailing behind him, leaving us to wonder if he left it on the side of the road or carried it home. Also, what did he tell his mechanic?

The longstanding saga of war between vehicles and parking gates shows no sign of ending, but this particular battle is undeniably one for the history books.

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Kaitlyn Workman is a University of Utah political science and mass communications major. Contact her at kworkman@deseretdigital.com

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