I’d consider myself a pretty good, if nervous, driver. I always check my mirrors, know that yellow means slow down (or speed up, depending on who you ask), and use my turn signal every time I switch lanes. The one thing I refuse to do under any circumstances? Parallel park, mostly because I’ve never run into a situation where I’ve absolutely needed to, but also because I don’t know how. Thankfully, RuPaul has just solved the second issue for me via TikTok.
I have no idea what inspired RuPaul to make this video, but on July 11, he posted a highly informative tutorial on how to parallel park, complete with step-by-step narration and a visual representation (AKA him expertly parallel parking his open-top Mercedes). I’d think it was straight out of a driver’s ed course if I didn’t recognize Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” playing softly in the background.
So, how do you parallel park? According to RuPaul, the secret is to base all your moves on your passenger side door (PSD). Meet all the key players in the parallel parking scenario: the front seam of your PSD (the line that shows you where the door begins); the back seam of your PSD (the line that shows you where the door ends); Car A (the car in front of the empty spot you want to park in); and Car B (the car behind of the empty spot you want to park in). From there, the process is simple:
- Pull your car side by side with Car A, about twelve inches apart.
- Reverse the car. Once the back seam of your PSD is aligned with Car A’s rear bumper, turn your wheel into the parking spot. The back of your car will start turning into the empty spot. Do this slowly, because…
- Once the front seam of your PSD is aligned with Car A’s rear bumper, turn your wheel the other way. This will make the front of your car seamlessly fit into the empty spot. Voilà!
Maybe it’s “Espresso” setting the mood, or RuPaul’s “You have been promoted” joke at the end, but I feel like I could parallel park anywhere in the world after watching that video. So can the people in the comments, like user @saderss who says, “Unironically the most understandable parallel parking tut I’ve ever seen thanks mama ru.” User @josephhmurphiaa even commented,“This should be a main challenge on Drag Race” (agreed). When I practice parallel parking in my driveway before taking my skills on the road, I’ll have RuPaul’s voice in the back of my head saying, “You betta park!”