Parking Lot Etiquette

I believe in Karma. 

I totally believe what goes around comes around. 

Back when I was teaching, I had a “personality” conflict with a woman with whom I was coaching.  I didn’t like hers. 

She was everything I wasn’t, and I will admit that if I had been a bit more mature I would have handled the situation differently, but I was 22.  Since I was just starting out and I had no money, I was living at home.  I would come home from work every day in tears because of some conflict we had had.  My mom would tell me to buck up and that “she’d get hers.” 

She was the head coach, so when the powers that be decided that one of us had to go, I resigned.  (My choice was to resign or be fired, truth be told.)  I certainly didn’t want this situation following me my entire career, so I took the easy way out.  When we met with the administration, however, I held my head high and I conducted myself with dignity and integrity while she acted like a teenager on too little sleep and too much speed and made a complete idiot out of herself.  Even though I was humiliated by having to quit, I felt that I had won in the eyes of my superiors.  They had been backed into a corner, and I have never blamed them for their decision.

Karma, of course, doesn’t always work out.  I can’t explain why my mother had to suffer from Cancer, or why any parent would lose a child, or why good people must struggle; but in the day-to-day monotony, I believe that the energy we put out into the universe matters.

I was enjoying a much-needed and infrequent day to myself while Hubby took the boys out for a bit.  I went to the mall.  The mall!  Not the little one up the street – the big one with the fancy stores!  Monday was Labor Day, however, so the mall was crowded.  I circled and circled in my Swagger Wagon until I found a parking spot that was being vacated.

I put my turn signal on, which we ALL KNOW is the universal indication that Im’ma take that spot.  It’s mine.  I’ll have it. 

Y’all know where I’m going with this, right? 

The driver backed out of the spot just as a sedan packed with eager shoppers came around the corner.  Surely she’s going to notice me and my polite turn signal and keep on truckin’ down the aisle. 

Even the driver backing up realized what was going down.  As he was halfway out of the spot, he stopped his car and honked at the sedan.  She ignored him and pulled into the spot.

Oh, hayl no.

Generally I am not a confrontational person, but some things are so vital to the continuation of humanity that one cannot stand by and let the injustice take place.  I stayed right where I was . . . signal a-blinkin’, and rolled down my window in preparation of politely reminding the sedan owner that ONE DOES NOT steal a parking spot for which someone is waiting. 

Before she could get out of her car, however, the backer-upper stopped his car, put it in park, got out of his car, and approached the sedan.  He knocked on the window and said something quietly to the passengers.  As he walked away he said, “they didn’t see you,” and he returned to his car.

“You rock,” I replied.

The sedan backed out of the spot, and as she drove by me she said, “I’m so sorry . . . I thought you were leaving.”

All that for an $18 shirt I could have bought online.