To the old man I pissed off in the parking lot - I'M SORRY!

I'd like to think I'm a generally nice person. I'll hold the door open for people, I'll let someone know they've dropped something. I'm doing much better at not laughing at people when they trip.

But there's one thing that annoys me MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD.

And that is - old men with hats.

I've known all along that they can NOT drive - or rather, SHOULD not drive. They're the worst drivers on the road. But because of their handicapp, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. I do kind of feel sorry for them. After all, they are old, decrepit, and feeble. They're hard of hearing (whether it's from old age, or because they just enjoy their AM talk radio station so much in the car), their spines are so contorted that they're unable to sit up straight to see over the steering wheel.

All valid reasons why old men with hats should not be on the road.

But again, I DO feel sorry for them. (If only someone could, in their lifetime, invent a way for the elderly to teleport to their Bingo games without wreaking havoc on our city streets.)

But I digress.

Today, as empathetic as I am towards the elderly, I pissed off an old man. And I felt bad about it. But, I have to state, IT WASN'T MY FAULT!

Here's what went down. Please observe the following diagrams to help you better understand the situation.

I went to The Real Canadian Superstore to pick up some groceries. I'm usually pretty lucky when it comes to finding a really good parking spot. Today was no exception.

Observe Exhibit A:

My car is highlighted in blue (for accuracy's sake, Wedgewood Blue). I turned down the row of cars in the lot, right in front of the Superstore, and spied a couple putting their groceries into their vehicle (highlighted in yellow), preparing to leave. Guns 'n Roses just came on the radio, so I turned it up, put my blinker on, and proceeded to wait for these folks to back out.









Exhibit B:

As I'm singing along to Sweet Child o' Mine, I see a woman getting into her grey van to my left. Another car has approached me and, having noticed my right blinker on for the yellow car, clicked on THEIR blinker to take the spot of the grey van.











Exhibit C:

The woman in the grey van poked her head out of her door window at me, motioning to me that I need to reverse my car so that she can back out. (I'm still waiting for the people in the yellow car to leave - they seemed to be taking their sweet time. Sweet Child o' Mine is over, I'm now listening to an Eagles tune.)

I put my car in reverse, and back up a bit. The grey van pulled out just as the yellow car's bright reverse lights go on. As the grey van drove away and the red car proceeded to take it's place, the yellow car began to back up. I noticed there was ANOTHER car, that had just appeared behind the RED car (stay with me people!), with THEIR blinker on ready to take the spot I've been waiting for!


Exhibit D:



So the grey van is gone, the red car has pulled into its spot, and there I was, with my blinker on, watching as the yellow car FINALLY decided to back up. The new car - the green one with, what I've discovered is being driven by none other than AN OLD MAN WITH A HAT - began to creep up a bit. Ooooh, I was feeling the anticipation!









Exhibit E:



Which brings me to the reason for this blog. The old man and I were nose-to-nose, fender-to-fender, each with equal occupancy in this now-vacant spot, each with determination that only one of us was getting that spot, and it wasn't going to be the other guy. The old man was laying on his horn, yelling things I could only assume included the words "young punk", and looked very angry. I, in response, was yelling back. "I'VE BEEN WAITING HERE FOR 10 MINUTES! I WAS HERE FIRST!" There was NO WAY I was giving up this spot I waited FOREVER for!

After it became evident that I was NOT going to move out of the way, and after the old man probably realized that he should be spending the limited amount of time he has left on this earth buying bird seed for the imaginary birds in his backyard instead of yelling at a "young punk", he finally back off, and I gleefully took the spot.

I parked as quickly as I could, because now the guilt was setting in. I made an old man get mad at me! I was going to hell! I wanted to jump out of the car, and hope the man was still behind me, and I would explain to him that, although he didn't realize it, I had been waiting long before he showed up.

But the man was gone.

I ran in, shopped as fast as I could, and ran back out to my car, to make sure the old bastard wasn't keying up my paint job.