Young, cocky men who, Walter Mitty feels, judge him for not being able to handle his car. The parking-lot attendant parks Mitty’s car with what Mitty sees as “insolent skill,” while the garagemen grin at Mitty as they remove his tire chains. Although Mitty’s reaction to these characters groups them together, only the parking-lot attendant appears in the story’s present; the garagemen are part of Mitty’s memory and his plan to avoid embarrassment on future visits to the garage.
Parking-Lot Attendant and Grinning Garagemen Quotes in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
The The Secret Life of Walter Mitty quotes below are all either spoken by Parking-Lot Attendant and Grinning Garagemen or refer to Parking-Lot Attendant and Grinning Garagemen. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Perennial Classics edition of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty published in 1999.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Quotes
The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged.
Related Characters:
Parking-Lot Attendant and Grinning Garagemen
Related Symbols:
Car
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The next time, he thought, I’ll wear my right arm in a sling; they won’t grin at me then. I’ll have my right arm in a sling and they’ll see I couldn’t possibly take the chains off myself.
Related Characters:
Walter Mitty (speaker), Parking-Lot Attendant and Grinning Garagemen
Related Symbols:
Car, Gloves, Overshoes, Sling, and Handkerchief
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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Parking-Lot Attendant and Grinning Garagemen Character Timeline in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
The timeline below shows where the character Parking-Lot Attendant and Grinning Garagemen appears in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Before Mitty can make his first cut, a shout from the parking-lot attendant interrupts the fantasy: Mitty has driven into the exit-only lane. Dazed, he tries to correct...
(full context)
...chains, only to end up with them wound around the axles, and another “young, grinning garageman” had to come and help him. Ever since, Mrs. Mitty has made him drive to...
(full context)
...arm in a sling the next time he goes to a garage, so that the garageman will see that he couldn’t have taken the chains off himself and will not grin...
(full context)