Parking Wars

Living in this area for most of my life I haven’t come across too many mean people. A tiny encounter with a woman this weekend leads me to believe that she isn’t from around here.

She might be from a place where parking is a cuthroat business.

I was driving by the front doors at Walmart when I had to stop behind a big SUV. It didn’t have its turn signals on, so I figured it was waiting to pick someone up. I went around it to the right and turned into a parking lane.

Or I should say I attempted to turn. A woman in her 30s stood in front of my Jeep so I couldn’t take a nearby parking spot. The SUV then turned into the spot.

Not wanting her to think that I had purposely tried to cut off the SUV for the precious spot, I pressed down my window and said to her I wasn’t planning on taking that spot.

After parking farther down the row I went in and got a cart. The woman was getting a cart too. When I walked by her I could feel her narrowed, piercing eyes staring at me. I laughed. I can’t remember getting that “mean girl” look in junior high or high school. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten that look.

When I got home I told my daughters I wished they were with me to see her give me the evil eye. What kind of a person would go out of her way so much to tell a stranger (nonverbally) what she thought of me?

In the store, I took off my black leather jacket and zebra-printed scarf in case I saw her in the aisles. She probably would have rammed her cart into mine.