I had the following interaction with a woman in a Wal-Mart parking lot:
I was about to drive into an open spot near the store entrance when a woman pushing an empty shopping cart walked into the spot as I started to turn in (seemingly oblivious to the possibility that a slowly moving truck a few feet away might be going into that parking spot, but that is another story). I braked, perplexed, but then noticed that directly on the other side of the space I was about to use was the shopping cart bin (the area where you park the carts). I assumed, since this parking space was the only open area within 30 yards either way, she was using this open space to better navigation to the shopping cart bin without any risk to other parked cars.
I assumed wrong. Instead of continuing to the other side where the entrance to the bin was, she instead stopped pushing and left the cart right in the middle of the empty parking space I was going to use, literally a few feet from the designated space for shopping carts. She walked away from the cart and towards my vehicle, which was about ten feet away. At first I was in disbelief and slow to respond, but a second later I did a quick tap on the horn.
"Can you move the cart please?" I called out. It was doubtful she heard me through the car, as my windows were rolled up, but she did look up from the sound of the horn though, and I pointed at the cart. She looked back at it and kept walking. I honked again, and spoke louder as she approached me.
"Can you move the cart, please? It is in my way." She kept walking towards her car (which was 2-3 stalls down from mine). As she walked by my window, she turned and said: "Don't talk to me like that."
I turned the engine off (the truck is still in the middle of the parking lot lane), got out, walked to the back of my vehicle and called out to her (she was about 15 feet away putting something in the trunk of her red car): "Tell me: How is it bad to ask you to please move the cart?"
Woman: "That is not what you said."
Me: "I asked you to please move the cart. You left it right where I was parking."
Woman: "It isn't even my cart. I was putting it there."
Hmm. Good answer. You don't deny that you put it in the wrong spot; your defense for being in the wrong is the person before you was lazy, so it is okay for you as well. Pass the buck to someone else... a kind of "f*ck you" pay it forward game. Nice.
I put the cart in the correct stall (it took all of three seconds), noticed she was watching me, so I called out: "Good attitude lazy ass!" and got back in my truck and pulled forward. A few seconds later, I saw her drive by me and out of the parking lot, knowing without doubt that she voted for George W. Bush twice.
Monday, September 10, 2007
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