The day was perfectly fine until I left the grocery store. First, my batteries fell out of the cart, and the box broke open, sending batteries sprawling across the sidewalk into the torrential rain.
Then, as I went to take my very full cart down the ramp and across the parking lot, a black Charger pulls up and blocks the ramp. And stays there. I had to knock on the idiot’s window to get him to pay attention to the guy standing in the middle of a thunderstorm will a full cart who probably isn’t going to be able to get it down the curb.
He moved. Grudgingly, from the look of it.
I slog out to my van, load it up, put the cart in the cart return and hustle back to my car, rain streaming off my sodden coat.
I get in, plug in my old school iPod nano and cue up some hard rock. I put it in reverse and…
A tan SUV pulls up behind me and stops.
Okay, whatever. Probably just waiting for someone to back out or something.
Except… no one’s moving. None of the other cars are even running. Plus, there are numerous empty spots because I’m one of the very few dummies to grocery shop during a storm. Like, at least eight different options within fifty feet, including on either side of me.
I look at the woman in the window. She’s screaming. Literally screaming. At me.
I can’t figure out why. I haven’t actually moved yet. Not even an inch. Then, I realize, because she rolls down her window and keeps yelling…
She wants my spot. Apparently, I’m keeping her from getting into that spot.
The spot she’s blocked me into.
Never mind that there are at least four open spots on the other side or that BOTH SPOTS on either side of me are empty. Never mind that I’m not on a bicycle, and there’s zero percent chance than my Grand Caravan is getting around her without an eight hundred point turn.
She doesn’t like my suggestion that if she wants my spot, she has to let me out first. I thought it was reasonable, but apparently, it demanded a response of slamming it into drive and tearing off into the parking lot. I think if it wasn’t raining, her tires would have squealed.
I don’t know who shat in her Corn Flakes, but I hope there’s some reason for what was clearly some kind of mental breakdown – both from a logic and an emotional standpoint.
Lady, wherever you are… smoke some weed or have a White Russian or something. Get laid. See a therapist.
Because that spot… it ain’t worth the aneurysm.
Target: 400 words
Written: 876 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Practicing Mind, Thomas Sterner
Comics: The Wake 5-8
Music: Kill 'Em All, Metallica (I swear, not planned)