So Sunday
a friend was ill and needed some things, so I took his car and headed out to do (gasp)
grocery shopping. I have to tell you, I hardly ever drive anywhere anymore, and I don't often enter a grocery store. So there I was after the shopping, driving out of the parking lot -- trying to, in any event -- and this very large woman was walking down the lane, not just
in the lane but right smack in the middle of it, and not simply walking right smack in the middle of it but strolling extremely slowly, with her back to me, toward her car. Which as it turned out was all the way at the end of the lane, so it was a loooong walk.
I'm not keen to honk a pedestrian out of the way; and, as she was strolling slowly, I was unable to make it to the turn at the end of the parking lot before the next wave of cars rolled through that intersection (it is a poor design, naturally, where you essentially must wait for the light to change at the next intersection down before the steady stream of traffic stops and you can escape the parking lot.
And so there I am stuck at the intersection -- which means my car is now coincidentally blocking miss slow lady from being able to back out of her space. So she honks me.
She honks me, she thinks I'm the bad guy here. She was unquestionably oblivious to the fact that I was
stuck there, what with the steady flow of cars in the intersection preventing my egress until the next interruption in its rhythm. She was, surely, equally oblivious to the fact that I'd have been long gone and out of her way had she, in a moment of possibly uncharacteristic awareness and forethought, walked a few feet closer to the side of the road instead of right smack in the middle of it, so cars in the lane could squeeze past her. Then I'd have been gone from her contemplation before her need to back out became an issue.
So later that same day I was getting in an elevator up to my friend's place, and though the elevator was more than half full, there was still room enough, so I got on, and on the next floor, two more people got on (a parking garage is attached to the building with guest entrance from the first floor, residents from the second). But these folks were carrying those oversized shopping bags, seemingly just back from a binge of getting both food and clothing, so their entrance filled it full.
And so when the elevator reached my friend's lower floor before theirs,
I was trapped, and my efforts to work my way out were met with exasperated sighs and eye rolling (and no polite offer of any of them to simply momentarily step out of the elevator and clear a path, and then step back in. Such is life. But I wonder how much better life would be for everybody if we all just took a moment here and there to be doubly courteous to each other. Not "helpful" even, necessarily, simply courteous.
----
In auditing news:
wertperch is
done!! Bless you, brother.
gnarl --
just started page 5 out of 6.
Next up? I'm thinking borgo. You hear me knocking, brother?