Oh joyful holiday parking
This little incident just struck me as funny. I met some friends for lunch today. It was great. I don't do that but once in a blue moon. I'm grateful that I got to do it today because it was really wonderful. Of course, since the restaurant is downtown, and it's 5 days until Christmas, finding parking was a bear. Parking downtown is all along the sides of the street. This particular block is actual parking spaces, but much of it is parallel. I drove around the block, waiting for my parking place to show up. As I turned back down the block that the restaurant is on, There was someone right in front of me waiting for a person to pull out. So I patiently waited, and waited and waited (the person behind the wheel of the parked car was REALLY slow) and just as the car in front of me was pulling into their FINALLY vacated space, the reverse lights of the car right next to them ignite. oh YAY! THERE is my parking space! Except that while I was waiting for the spot to be vacated, some woman got out of the car behind me, walked up the sidewalk, and stepped into my space. She mouthed to me that it was hers. I shook my head and mouthed "no" back to her. She returned with "I'm saving it." Um.... let me think about this for a micro-milisecond. NOPE! Not gonna happen. I suppose I could have let her have it, in the spirit of the season.... but... NO! It just doesn't work that way. So I just sat there for a few minutes. She kept looking at me and then at the driver of the car behind me and back again. What was funny is that it was cold and rainy outside. So there she is standing in my space, getting cold and wet. I, however, am warm and dry inside my car.... I've got all the time in the world, lady. How wet do you want to get? It was kind of amusing. I finally rolled down the window and said, calmly, "You can't do that."Crazy lady: I'm saving this spot.Me: You can't do that.Crazy lady: We were over there [she points] and now we're moving over here. So we've got this space."Me: You can't do that. Your car is behind me.Crazy lady: But we're just moving from over there! [points again]Me: I don't care. You can't do that. If you had a parking space over there, you should have kept it. But I was waiting here when the car parked here pulled out and I will be parking here. Crazy lady: [looks at me, confused] You're not going to let us park here?Me: no.Crazy lady: [pause, while she lets this information sink in] Fine, you can have it. Me: Thanks, I know. In the meantime, the person who had pulled into the spot next to mine right before all of this had gotten out of her car and was staring at the whole scene with an irritated look on her face. I thought, Oh great, they were together and now I'm going to have to deal with this woman too. But when I got out of the car she said "can you believe some people?" It turns out that she was standing there waiting to see what happened so she would be there to back me up if necessary. How cool is that? We chatted for a minute, about how crazy some people get during this time of year, and then went on our merry ways. I couldn't stop giggling about it for the next couple of hours. I was just truly amused.When I relayed this story to Jeff, he laughed and said "That's bordering on Criminal Mischief" (or some such police technical term like that...). Can you imagine getting arrested for using your body to block a parking space? Merry Freaking Chrismas! ROFL!