Wednesday, June 29, 2011

I'm not invisible after all

There's a reason why I keep saying that whackadoodles love me.

A little background on this entire story. In Virginia, when it snows and people dig out, they will remove every single ounce of snow from their parking space. Yes, if there's been 30 inches, they will dig 30 inches down to the asphalt. I kid you not. Several years ago, people who were parked in unnumbered spaces here would dig their cars out and then place a lawn chair in the space to "save" it. Of course, someone would just get out and move the lawn chair and then take the open space, forcing that person to find a different one. Oh, well, no good deed goes unpunished.

I went out tonight for dinner and had to drive around a one-way loop to get to the space that I'd just seen someone vacate. Except these two women go running (relatively speaking) across the parking lot to stand in the middle of that empty parking space. I suppose if I were a different person, I'd have let it go and just found another space, but I was right there and they were telling me that the car was on its way and they had to drive all the way around the loop and they were going to park there. Yeah, so did I. The only way you can park there without driving around the loop is by going the wrong way on a one-way street. However, being the incredibly tactful person that I am, I said, "No. I'm here now and you aren't going to get this space unless I move and I'm not moving." I knew I could win that fight and after a brief discussion, they decided to vacate the space.


So I go inside where the restaurant (Panera, of course, where all good whackadoodles go to find me) has a communal line. I like communal lines because they are incredibly fair. You don't have to worry about having picked the line with someone who wants three smoothies and four espresso drinks. A couple of people asked if that was the line and they were told that yes, it was.

So, this one woman (guess what, she was blonde!) wanted to look at the menu, which you really cannot see from the line. Again, this is not a problem. The problem came when she was standing in front of a cashier, station ostensibly reading the menu, and the woman came back and she attempted to place an order. Yes, attempted is the correct word because I wasn't in the mood (see two women who tried to make me hit them above). I looked over and just said, "Excuse me, I'm next in line."

I imagine she and the person she was with have decided that I'm the bad guy (as usual), but line jumping is not allowed and, yes, I will stand up for what I believe is right.

Sidebar: Apparently I write good e-mail because I wrote one around 2:00 this morning that ended up being discussed on the Power Play on NHL Home Ice this afternoon. I don't think I even edited it more than once or twice.

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