Placing a vehicle between two to three lines is a task that has been a part of daily life ever since automated transport became a norm in society. And, ever since that day, it has been seemingly the hardest part of daily life.

At least, that’s what all the evidence points. Every day, I see cars double, triple, quadruple parked. I have even heard rumors of the mysterious nonuple-park. Reports of such a feat keep me up into the wee hours of the morning, mulling over the logistics of how something so bold could be accomplished.

Back to my point: we’ve been driving every day, and every time we stop driving, we park. If we’re speaking statistically, that means the overwhelming majority of people park at least twice a day. Once when they arrive at work, and once when they arrive back home. This doesn’t take into account the extra two parking scenarios presented by a lunch-break, that is, unless you’re using a drive-thru type establishment to obtain your midday sustenance.

With all this in mind, I am confident in saying the average person, on an average day, parks their car between 2-4 times, we’ll say 3. On average, people park their car more often than they brush their teeth.

“Well that’s obvious.”

Thank you, kind reader. But think about this: if Americans spend an average of between 30-60 seconds brushing their teeth, twice a day, with the water running, and an average flow rate of 2.2 gallons per minute, that’s between 2-4.5 gallons of water used per day. The average car nowadays will sip fuel at low rpms/idle speed, less than .5 gallons/hour. It takes less than 20 seconds to either park correctly or repair a botched attempt. Your car already filters the exhaust fumes down to a mere percentage of what would be spilling out of an unfiltered exhaust, and like I said, your car is running for less than 20 seconds extra. Meanwhile, you’re pouring up to 4 gallons of usable water down your drain each day, just from brushing your teeth.

Now I realize this is a bit of an odd comparison, but hear me out. You put care into brushing your teeth for a few reasons, your own hygiene, to make yourself more attractive, and if we’re honest, so you don’t have a disappointed dentist staring down at you as you try to come up with some reason why your busy life does not allot enough time to floss.

On the other hand, you should put care into how you leave your vehicle for mostly parallel reasons, your car’s/your own health, a poor parking job can result in a frustrated civilian going to extreme measures to express his frustration, everything from passive-aggressive notes, to intentional paint scratches/bodily harm. You should put care into how you leave your vehicle so that people do not look upon your line-breaching atrocity with hate and disgust. Finally, you should put care into how you leave your vehicle so that when you take that special someone out on a first date, he/she gets out, looks at way your car is sprawled across the spaces and thinks: “Ugh, they must not brush their teeth”