Populus dixit

through its silence, until someone actually piped up.

Actually, friends have been telling me for weeks that they don't get the whole parking thing. Clearly I'm failing in my effort to demonstrate What Makes It So Great.

And so, before The Next Best Thing metamorphoses from being a blog mostly about parking into a blog mostly about crosswords, let me just make one more plea on behalf this sorely underrated endeavor.

Not only is it the most stress-reducing activity I know, it's also a terrific License to Watch.

Oh, the people you'll meet!

Like the woman walking her mini-dog. Has she always walked heel to toe, or has she learned to move in slow motion only since Pooch became too old and decrepit to walk at a normal pace?

Or the guy in the brown corduroy shirt-jak who keeps insisting on such a generous distance between me and his red Honda Civic. Do the many scratches on his rear bumper reveal anything about his extraordinary need for space?

Or the woman who walks out into the street and sweeps away leaves with a broom, even though the city is already on the case.

Parking is a window into a whole world waiting to be discovered.