The Parking Spot

While at the grocery store the other day, I couldn’t get over how crazy people were being. It seems like it’s a battle zone these days. I don’t understand what brings out the basket of insanity in people when it comes to grocery shopping. Take for example, the man I recently had to deal with.

Lochlan had a doctors appointment and on the way home we stopped at a grocery store to get some essentials.

I pulled into the parking lot and when I looked around, I saw plenty of spaces available and also saw a big pile of snow partially blocking the space right next to us. I thought there wasn’t any way someone would want to park there and perfect because Lochlan has kicked off his boots, removed his hat (his hair standing on end and reminding me that he needs a haircut and kicking myself for sleeping through his appointment last weekend) and had flung off his mittens, one landing in the front seat and one in the backseat that I couldn't locate. This spot was perfect for the extra time it was going to take me to get Loch out of the car. I walked around, opened the door and tried to keep it as close to me as possible in case there was some idiot who would attempt to park next to a woman wrangling her toddler out of the backseat of her car.

I was in the middle of pulling on Lochlan's boots when I heard someone yell “Move your ass!” I thought damn, I would hate to be at the end of this guy’s wrath. Then I heard it again. This time it was louder and closer. I turned around slightly, boot in hand and saw there was an old man in a ginormous car trying to park in the space right next to me.

Out of all the parking spaces that were open, he picks the one that’s somewhat blocked with a pile of snow and with a woman standing right outside of her car.

I looked at the guy and because I was in disbelief at what a jerk he was being, I said “Excuse me?” He replied ” I told you to move your ass or I’m going to run it over with my car!” For a few seconds I thought I could hop into the car and close the door so I could let Mr. WTF park but I knew if I took even one hand off of my wiggly three year old, he would try and launch himself out of his now, unbuckled carseat to get out of the car.

I thought I could try to reason with him and be relatable so I told him that I was in the middle of getting my toddler out of the car and I would just be a minute. His response “That’s YOUR PROBLEM! You should have thought of that before you decided to bring your kid to the grocery store and block my parking space!”

Mr. WTF’s yelling scared Lochlan and angered me. I was almost done with his hat, boots and mittens and at this point, I was shaking I was so upset. He kept on yelling at me but I have no idea what he said. I was in mama bear mode and wanted to kick this guy’s butt.

The minute I had asked him for took longer. I was a nervous wreck because of his behavior but I was finally done, I picked Lochlan up while closing the door. This whole incident only lasted a few minutes but it seemed a lot longer.

He got out of his car, walked towards the grocery store (same one we were going into), and kept on looking back at me while yelling.

I calmed down, finished our shopping and returned to my car...Mr. WTF's ginormous car still parked next to me. I wanted to lave a note on the guy’s car. I wanted to use lots of words containing the letters F and U while suggesting he needed to learn some manners.

Sadly, I had neither pen nor paper and it was snowing so I’m sure the note would have disintegrated by the time Mr. WTF came back out. I pretty confident though, that he wouldn’t have cared even if he did read it.

Have you experienced any grocery store unpleasantness?