I’ve owned a car for two years. I loved not owning a car. Because reasons – Zipcar got awful – I kinda had to get one. I hate having a car.
Generally, parking isn’t one of my top complaints. A couple of days ago though….
I drove around my block a couple of times. The third time, I saw a guy getting ready to leave, I thought. I asked him. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m leaving, but I’ll be five or ten minutes. I’m waiting for my wife.”
“No worries,” I said. And I waited, just behind him. Three or four cars up, another car was double parked. Was he waiting for my spot? I figured no. He didn’t come and tell me he was waiting. I was right by the spot. He was, parking-spot-wise, far away.
Some minutes passed. The car in my spot left. I eased in. Drove ahead of the spot. Backed in. And as I did so, the car up ahead rolled back. He rolled down his window. “What the fuck?” he said. “I was waiting!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It didn’t seem that way to me.”
He said a lot of things. About how parking works. About my violation of some rules he had in his head.
I felt for the guy. It sucks to wait for a spot and not get it. But. He waited wrong.
He said some more things. Called me a shitty human.
“A shitty human?” I asked incredulously. “You and I had a misunderstanding. We have a different view of things. But. A shitty human?”
The dude, unmistakably, was in the wrong. If he had said to me, “I know you’re already in the spot. I know you waited too. But my kid is in my car and I was distracted. Didn’t see you. I would’ve told you I was waiting, but I was in kid-land,” I almost certainly would’ve shrugged, rued my lost ten minutes, and given him my spot.
Instead, he leaped to calling me a shitty human.
Now. Worst case, I was nasty. Inconsiderate. Best case? I was right. Likely case? Somewhere in between. But. He didn’t inspire me to move.
I didn’t refer to this clip. But I thought about it.