why mean people are good for us

[ciroccoj]

Had a bit of a revelation at the bachelorette party. I had been asked to pick up the food, and one of the other guests came to help me carry it. Looooong story short, we realized that we were quite possibly the two worst candidates at the party for pick-up duty, since she doesn't drive and I have no sense of direction. We didn't even remember the address of the restaurant (Mekong) so after much fruitless driving around, I said, screw it, let's find a phone booth somewhere and look it up.

Amazing how rare phone booths are when you're looking for one.

Anyway. Found one off Bank, but it was on a one-way street the wrong way from us. I drove into it anyway, since there was an open parking spot two meters away from the corner. Tried to get into it, but it was one of those diagonal parking thingies so I ended up partly sticking out into the street. Screw it, we weren't going to be there more than five minutes, so I hopped out and ran to the phone booth.

I find the Ms and hear a commotion behind me. Some woman in an SUV is right next to me, loudly saying, "Well she can't just block the whole street!!" and a voice farther away (a cop in a car, actually) is saying, "Ma'am, I'm sure she'll move soon." Keep in mind I have had time to get out of the car, cross the street, and find M in the phone book. This cannot possibly have taken more than 2 minutes. Keep in mind also that beside my badly-parked car is the cop car, and beside that is the SUV. I don't think leaving enough room for a cop car and an SUV to park next to you counts as "blocking the whole street."

Screw it, I don't want to keep listening to this bitching and I don't want to put the cop in the uncomfortable position of trying to be nice to me while I'm technically behaving badly, vehicularly speaking. So I drop the phone book, get in the car, and decide to park properly. The cop drives off to give me room, I back out, signal that I'm turning into the spot - and SVU-bitch quickly pulls into my spot.

God damn. I say a few choice words and pull ahead, drive waaaay down the street, park, and run back to the phone booth, utterly steamed. And as I get to the phone booth I run past SVU-bitch, who gives me the finger.

Which actually made me giggle, and got rid of all my negative energy. All of a sudden the ridiculousness of this poor woman's life came into focus for me. And I felt like patting her on the back and saying, "Good for you, sweetie. You got to complain to a cop about a 'bad driver', got the bad driver to move her car and got to grab her sweet parking spot right out from under her and she couldn't do a thing, and then you got to give her the finger!! Good for you!! That's probably your greatest accomplishment this week!!"

Ridiculously mean people are good for the rest of us, I think. They let us see that no matter how hard our life gets, it's got to be better than theirs ;)

Hm... do you think if I'd expressed my gratitude to her for the above, she might have taken it the wrong way?

Comments

[misstexan9821.livejournal.com]

::laughs::
Excuse me while I smother my hysterical laughing. People like that just make me want to smile and wave. I think you should have congratulated her on her "accomplishments". Good story. You'll be able to tell it every time someone tells you how annoying so-and-so is, and win the Best Story award. ;)


I'm insane! :D ::runs away::

[jenniferjames.livejournal.com]

And as I get to the phone booth I run past SVU-bitch, who gives me the finger... Which actually made me giggle

Heh. Sounds like you had as much fun with "Attack of the SUV-Bitch" as I did with "Adventures in Fender-land".

You're a better woman than me, ciroccoj. I'm having visions of her relatives opening a package containing the hood ornament from her car and a catfish (hey, I'm in the South!) with a note that reads, "SUV-Bitch sleeps with the fishes." :P

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

"SUV-Bitch sleeps with the fishes." :P

LOL!!!

Thanks :)