Parking-Lot Rage

I CAN UNDERSTAND ROAD RAGE…AND PARKING-LOT RAGE…NOW

Coming out of Sam’s Club yesterday morning, I found that a white van had parked about 12” from my driver’s side door. I have a 1999 Camaro, and that door is LARGE and needs considerable room to open, which is why I made sure I parked far away from all other vehicles. However, even if I’d had a 1956 Nash Rambler or my old '68 Beetle, it would have been rather difficult to get into my car.

Well, I could reach in enough to move the seat ALL THE WAY back; then I managed to reach the handle to lower the window and cranked it down. Next, I tried to squeeze through the opening in the door, but there was maybe 8” of room. “Should I wait to kill the driver of the van or try something else?” I thought. I could open the passenger’s side door, but I couldn’t figure how I could get my legs under the steering wheel and then the rest of me over the console and the gear shift.

Well, I decided to crawl through my open window, head first. I got most of me in, twisting myself about 180 degrees, propped up between the two seats, and then bent and actually pulled my ankles up enough (with my hands!) to slide my feet down under the steering wheel. Then the rest of me – ass, back, upper torso, and head --- made it into the driver’s seat.

As I pulled out of the parking space (did I mention that there were AT LEAST EIGHT EMPTY spaces on the other side of that white van?), a fellow in his late 20’s, standing in the middle of the parking lot, held up his hand and motioned me to stop. Since my window was still open, I stopped next to him and asked, “Yeah?’

“I was watching you try to get into your car,” he said with a smile.

“Yeah, so?” I asked.

“You want me to help you flatten all four tires on that sonofabitch’s van?” he asked with a bigger smile. “I got a Marine K-Bar knife in my truck,” he added, pointing to a large Dodge Ram.

“Naah. Maybe on another day. But thanks,” I told him.

By the time I was halfway up 29 toward Ruckersville, I was already regretting not taking him up on his offer…and if that sonofabitch in the white van who was at Sam’s yesterday around 10:15 is reading this, I hope the fleas of a thousand camels infest your body hair and your whole family gets herpes.