Victory Is Mine

Parking at the gym

I took my beast (2001 Chevy Silverado) to the gym today and parked it, reversing into a spot towards the back of the lot, next to a G35 and an empty spot on the driver side. I kept it really close to the line on my side so as to leave the G35 some room in case he had a passenger. My back left tire was literally no more than one inch into the white line. Not over it and into the other spot, mind you, not even halfway into the white line itself. Just an inch in.

I come back after my workout, and there's a middle-aged lady in some sort of new age wagon shuffling things around, with her trunk hatch open and her rear passenger door swung open as far as it could go without leaning on my truck. I am pleased that she has such kindness so as not to lean her door on my truck, even though scratches and tiny bumps build character. I get there and wait a sec for her to realize I own the truck and need to get by. She has sunglasses on, so I can't really gauge her expression that well, but she looks at me and says "That your truck?" and I nod. She gets a wry smile, the type which only crops on one side of the face, and visibly looks down toward my back tire which is an inch over the spot. I stop and say "Someone was parked closed to me on the other side when I got into this spot, I didn't think that was so much of a problem." She starts to say "They don't make parking spots for your truck here," and then I get in my car, slamming the door shut while saying "WELL IT DOESN'T SAY COMPACT EITHER", referring to the parking spot, not my truck.

At this point, old lady suddenly realizes I am an unshaven, five-weeks-without-a-haircut, relatively big brown dude (who probably looks a bit bigger than normal as he just finished a 2-hr workout) who is now furious at her for being such a ragin bitch. She then tries to play it off while my window is down so I roll it down to see what she's saying, which is "I'm not angry at you! Just mean it's too bad they don't make parking spots big enough for your truck," all the while most likely thinking "Please don't commandeer a 757 into my home. Asalamalikim, allahu-akbar, etc. etc."

"Have a nice day," I say, and storm off. Ugh. Even if I'd had a gun, I probably wouldn't have shot at her. Not that she didn't deserve it.

posted by Publius @ 10:39 PM