Parking Space

It's been a crazy weekend for me, though the truth is, it started Thursday. I've worked late from Wed to Friday, but the at least I got the weekend off. Though, due to circumstances and happy chance, I didn't get to do what I had planned on doing. Mainly, I didn't have time to do laundry on Sunday, my laundry day. Luckily, I have clean stuff I could still wear; I'll do the washing and ironing tonight. I'll update later on tonight, and I'll be visiting blogs to catch up as well.

In the meantime, I'm home for lunch after having made a quick stop at a local shop. It's one of the more popular ones in the shopping complex about five minutes away from home. I parked the car, got out, and was about to cross into the store when a voice yelled out, "You, there!"

I ignored it at first because I was waiting for the cars to pass by so I could cross. But then I heard an even louder, "You there, young man!"

I turned to see who was doing all this shouting. It was an old woman in a Cadillac, sporting large sunglasses and a huge beehive! I wasn't sure if it was a wig or if she'd put a serious dent in the ozone layer with all the hairspray used to freeze that monstrosity. Even more surprising than the feat of her tiny neck holding up such a gargantuan hairdo was the fact that she appeared to have been calling me. I had no idea who this old bird was, and I looked around to see if perhaps she was calling someone else. Nope. Just me.

"Young man," she addressed again, "Yes, you," she sounded exasperated, as if she couldn't believe how much time she was wasting talking to me.

I was thinking, okay, rude. I probably should walk away. But in the tiny corner of my brain, that die hard sense of courtesy ingrained in me since birth railed up, asking me to go over to see what the old lady wanted. Damned sense of courtesy! But what the hell, maybe she was lost and needed some directions. So I walked over to the old lady and asked, "What can I do for you, ma'am?"

Up close, her face had more wrinkles than a whore's dirty linen in the laundry pile. And there was a huge mole on the side of her chin with two hairs sprouting out as if to say, look at us! We're right here! I almost expected to see a little face in that mole looking back at me. The old lady wore bright red lipstick that was smeared on her dentures. I mean, they had to be dentures. They were too white and too straight for someone who was smoking a cigarette, and her gravelly, low voice and tar tainted breath suggested she had a long affair with tobacco. The old lady perfume she bathed herself in mixed with the stench of cigarettes to create a pungent, mothball like odor that oozed off her noticeably, as if she were trying to keep away the insects from devouring her all ready decaying body. She took a puff of that cigarette, blew it out, not caring that some of the smoke was wafting towards my face. She tapped that cigarette into an ashtray and asked, "Is there any parking down that way?", indicating the direction that I was coming from.

I said, "Yes, there is."

"That would be all," she said quite haughtily and immediately drove off.

I'm thinking, Huh! You're welcome! So I headed into the store and picked up the item that I wanted, paid for it and headed back out. I was about to reach the exit when who should I run into but the old lady, huffing and puffing at the entrance, looking quite ragged. Upon seeing me she accosted, "You, young man! You said that there was parking down the way when I asked you!"

Her loud voice had caused a few people to stop and turn to see what all the commotion was about. I stopped, turned and said to her, "Yes, there was parking that I saw down there. You didn't find any empty spots?"

"The only spots open were far down! I had to walk all the way from the back!," she replied angrily.

So I said, "You asked if there was parking and I told you there was. But you never asked how far it was."

She looked offended and said, "Well, young man, you may not have any problems walking from the back lot, but I'll have you know, that it's quite far for a person like myself."

"Well, I wouldn't know how far the walk is from the back lot, " I said, "especially since I parked in the front lot. Happy Holidays," and I smiled and walked out, leaving to her fume and catch her breath by the front door, the onlookers giggling. Ah, now life is funny sometimes.