Working My Shift

There are two types of people who do valet at such a large event as the Emmy’s for this particular company. They are: sorority girls, or regular valet drivers who work for the company all the time. I am neither, so the day was lonely, and especially irritating.

I suppose that the Random College Student In Charge of Such Things is herself in a sorority, and this is the reason that so many of the people contracted to work at this event are so very far from clever. I suppose I should be charitable here and suppose that all young women between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one are bound to be shrill, insipid little gum-chewers who don’t know that the top button of a white shirt must be buttoned when one wears a tie, polyester or otherwise. But I personally suspect that the young women who are not in a sorority are far less annoying. God knows they couldn’t be more annoying, not if they tried.

But all I’m really trying to do here is get across just exactly how poorly I think of myself. If nothing is funnier than watching a grown man hide his white socks, nothing is more depressing than realizing that the Alpha Delta Pi currently smacking her gum to your left is capable of driving a stick shift, but you are not.

It isn’t like I haven’t tried.

In fact, my father taught me to drive a stick shift before he taught me to drive an automatic. He claimed that it would be an easy matter to switch from the former to the latter, but not the other way around. Of course he was right. So I practiced driving his Toyota 4Runner around the community college parking lot until I was ready to drive the car home. On my first journey on the open road, we stopped at the video store to return some videos. A guy in the parking lot mentioned to my dad that he’d always wanted a 4Runner, and offered to buy the truck if my father could ever stand parting with it. Evidently, my dad wanted to sell the truck, though he had never mentioned it before, and the guy in the video store parking lot bought our family’s only standard transmission automobile the week after I learned to drive it.

It was all automatics after that, and I’ve never looked back until I did valet at the Emmy’s.

The Boss of the Outfit assured all of us that it was okay if we didn’t know how to drive a particular kind of transmission. In fact, he made us promise to get out of any car that made us in any way nervous or uncomfortable. Passing the car off to a more experienced driver is far better than crashing it.

I was relieved to hear this, until I realized that things have become even more complicated since I learned to drive. You used to just put the key in and turn to start the engine, and maybe, if necessary, depress the clutch. But now there are these strange, noiseless vehicles that look like regular cars but are reserved for those people who are indeed rich enough to be actually concerned about the environment, are not rich enough to be concerned about the environment but wish to appear to be so, or are truly rich and only want to look concerned. I am none of the above, and therefore didn’t know how to drive a hybrid.

The actual driving of a hybrid was not in any way different than driving any car that is entirely out of my price range. Intimidating, yes, but the steering wheel and the brake and the accelerator were all in the right place. It’s the starting and stopping of the electric power that is the tricky part, because the car gives precious little indication of its power status. On or off, the damn things are quiet and futuristic.

And then there are the cars that start with the push of a button. And then there are cars that start with fobs. They confused me terribly. And there are even some cars, like a Jaguar I drove, that have a transmission that looks like the volume knob on a stereo. You just turn in a couple notches to the right to put it in drive, and turn it back to put it in park.

I discovered that many of the people who had signed up for the job were not as desperate for employment as myself, but only wanted to drive really expensive cars all afternoon. The Sorority Sisters were indeed some of those most keen on getting the “hot cars.” The sight of a European car with its top down could cause a shrieking chorus of “DIBS!!!” so urgent that several off the girls accidentally spat out their Extra from excitement and glee.

I rarely joined into this feeding frenzy during the arrivals, since there were far more drivers waiting to hop into a car than there were cars with guests waiting to hop out. And besides, most of the hot cars had clutches, so I had to take the Camrys and Accords whenever they were available. A notable exception was the Jaguar with the dial-a-gear transmission. But the seat was so low in that car I could barely drive it, and had to peer over the steering wheel like a prairie dog on the lookout for coyotes, which made it just a little less fun.

After all the arrivals were parked, there was nothing to do but sit and wait for the ceremony to be over. Subway sandwiches were delivered, and I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Nothing beats a job with a free meal.

Industry awards ceremonies are incredibly long, as anyone who has watched one on television can attest. But sitting on a cold folding chair in a parking garage, staring at the wall in your black socks and abhorrent polyester vest, in fact makes the hours pass more quickly than actually watching the show.

It wasn’t long before we were preparing for the end of the ceremony, which is just the beginning of the show for valet drivers.