Tonight, I went to Safeway to get stuff for dinner. This is pretty common. In order for me to cook, I need to buy all the components myself. It’s impossible for me to look around the kitchen and work with the ingredients we have.
That should be a cooking show. Chefs come into my house and have to make an edible meal with the stuff we have in the pantry. I know it’s possible because Melinda does it all the time, but I have no talent for it. I need to have all the ingredients for a meal right in front of me, fresh from the store. Otherwise, I’ll forget what we have.
Just riding to Safeway across the street can sometimes be an adventure. Tonight’s theme was “people park like assholes” night.
Across from the space I selected was an RV with a handicap placard hanging from the mirror occupying three spaces. It wasn’t parked in a way that suggested this was on purpose, rather that the driver had tried to get it into a single space and failed miserably and was perhaps unaware he was occupying three spaces.
Fair enough, honestly. I have a hell of a time parking in that lot. In a lot of Northern Virginia. The parking spaces are so narrow you need to back up and straighten out almost every time.
At first I thought it was my own deficiency, that I couldn’t properly fit into a spot without Austin Powers’ing myself in there, but when I go home to New Jersey and need to park at Target, I’ve got a fucking acre on either side of the truck.
But then there was the guy in the Range Rover, who parked in the fire lane in front of the store. He put his four-ways on, got out, and went into the grocery store right ahead of me. At first, I thought he might be looking for his wife or something, that he’d parked illegally so he could get her grocery cart and help load them into his overpriced SUV.
But then he did something that changed my impression of him altogether. He grabbed a basket, and he made his way to the far right of the store.
Far be it from me to judge, but if you’re going to park in an illegal fire lane, I feel like your shopping trip should be limited to what you can carry in your arms.
I forgot about this guy as I went through the store, picking out the items I needed for dinner. But when I went to check out, there he was, in the lane next to me. He had legit groceries in his basket; grapes, strawberries, an avocado. It was clear he wasn’t just grabbing a few things and heading home, or that he parked in the fire lane to get his wife’s emergency medication from the pharmacy. This guy was taking his fucking time.
I ended up finishing my shopping before he got through the line, walking 20 steps past his Range Rover and into the parking lot, where my SUV was sandwiched between a Toyota Tercel and the cock-eyed RV.
I wanted justice, but what was I going to do? Guys like that would never meet their maker.
So I went home and drank a beer and made a delicious store-bought meal for Melinda instead.
I Don't Belong Here. 