Tuesday, August 26, 2008

overreaction

I am having the most unbelievably crappadocious morning. Let me preface this post by telling you that the story I am about to relay is COMPLETELY MY FAULT. I know this, and I own up to this, but I still must vent. People, man. PEOPLE.

So I was dropping off the kids at their various daycares and preschools this morning. Delaney’s daycare is in a condo complex, which means the parking situation is less than ideal. There is one designated spot where the parents are supposed to park while they are doing the drop-off. If that spot is taken, then I guess you are supposed to park on the street. This morning, of course, that spot was taken. So I had a decision to make: make a big, time-consuming loop and park on the street, or park in one of the other empty spots assuming the people who own those spots are already off to work.

Ill-fatedly, I chose the latter. I knew it was a risk, but I was going to be parked there for all of five minutes and didn’t anticipate a problem.

HOW WRONG I WAS.

When I came out of the daycare, I saw that the car who normally parks in the spot I had taken was parked behind me with the hazards on.

Crap.

I had Evan with me and we had no option but to get in the car and wait. I didn’t know which condo the car belonged to and even if I did, my sense of guilt and shame would have prevented me from knocking on the door and asking them to move the car when it was clearly my fault for parking there in the first place.

So we waited.

And waited.

And while we were waiting, an older couple came out of their condo and I saw them shaking their heads and cluck-clucking at me. I could hear every word they said (come on, it’s a car with glass windows, not a soundproof booth). The woman said sadly, “Oh no. Someone parked in her spot,” and continued shaking her head to show her disapproval.

Meanwhile, among all the obvious judgment, I had figured out which condo the car behind me belonged to. It was straight ahead of me and there was a lady in there who kept looking out her kitchen window. She appeared to be doing her dishes or something but she was moving SLOWER THAN MOLASSES and kept peeking outside her window, leading me to believe that she was the one.

Finally she emerged – after 15 minutes. I rolled down my window, smiled at her and said “I’m REALLY sorry! This was totally my fault!” She just looked at me and stared at me with a death glare. Then, Angry Condo Parking Lot Lady walked back to her car and proceeded to take an extended look to make sure that I hadn’t tried to hit her car or anything. At this point I became somewhat enraged. I knew what I had done wrong and I had apologized to ACPLL and received absolutely no response. She had clearly parked behind me to teach me a lesson and was not going to let up until she was good and done. And meanwhile, was going to continue looking at me every 30 seconds or so to give me the death glare. You know, in case I did not know she was good and angry.

Meanwhile, I am trying to talk to Evan. He kept asking “Why are we not moving?” and I said “Mommy parked in this lady’s spot and now I can’t move because her car is blocking mine.” He said “That lady does not look happy.”

Welcome to the understatement of the year.

After her complete inspection of her car, ACPLL got in her car, took an exceedingly long time turning on the engine and getting settled, and drove away.

Have I mentioned that I totally understand this was my fault??? Because I do. But I also know that it’s not like I ran over her dog. If I was her, I probably would have been irritated too, and she had every right to be. But if I had been in her place and someone had given me a sincere apology, I probably would have gone on my way and not harbored such an obvious and unnecessary grudge.

Help me understand here: am I crazy? Who overreacted here, her or me?

5 comments:

little miss mel said...

I would have done the same thing. Too bad you got "caught." Clearly this lady had nothing better to do, set in her ways, and was more than thrilled to nail you to the wall the best she could.

I think your guilt was punishment enough. She didn't have to rub it in, especially when you have a tot in the car.

I would have broken into a sweat filled with irritation at the entire event.

Hey, at least it's not Monday, right?

Angella said...

Some people just need to chill the heck out.

Seriously.

Life is too short :)

AnnieM said...

She sounds like a boring bitty that didn't have anything else to do with herself so she thought she'd teach you "a lesson". People like that are so annoying.

But really? Poor her. What a miserable life she must have to get that angry about such tiny things.

Really, she overreacted!

karla said...

I'm guessing it's about the ten thousandth time it's happened, and the chick was about to lose her mind. If there's a daycare there, it probably happens every day, several times. She has probably had a whole range of reactions as the problem happened over and over--irritated with this lady, then silently angry with the next one, then yelling at the next one, then threatening violence with the next one, and she's now somewhere near totally boiling over and running naked through the streets. Clearly she has bitched about the problem to everyone who would listen, since her neighbors who walked by knew she'd freak out. She did totally overreact and go out of her way to make you feel like a schmuck, though, and it makes me wonder why she would chose condo living when it's fraught with such issues. She needs a quiet little farmhouse miles away from civilization. I'm guessing she's going to open fire on random passersby pretty soon.

PAPATV said...

i bet you provided her the only true excitement out of her dull existence and that's why she "savored" it for so long. you did nothing wrong. it's times like this when i wish i had a crapmobile (actually i do) and there weren't annoying things like insurance and you could just back the heck up...how fun would it have been to see her reaction THEN? HA.