Patience—Again
Today was a cool and rainy day. Ally and I normally walk to pick up Gabby after school. It really isn’t far—walking comfortably at Ally’s pace takes us less than five minutes to get there. Today, because of the rain, we took the car.
Parking at the school is limited. About thirty minutes before the kids come out, they block off street in front of the school and make it open to one way traffic only. As I was sitting in the car, reading my book, a minivan tried to parallel park into the spot in front of me. Watching her, I could see that there was no way that she was going to get into that spot at the distance and angle that she was at. Anyone could see that.
While this minivan was trying to park, another car drove up beside me and snuck into the spot. I, honestly, don’t know who I was more irritated with—the driver of the minivan who does not know how to parallel park or the sneaky person that stole the spot.
The past few days here have been gloomy so I have been driving to pick up Gabby. In these past few days, I have seen this same minivan try to park. She really does not know how to parallel park. Everyone just stops and stares when she makes these attempts. It takes her 5 minutes of backwards and forwards before she stops—I kid you not!
When she does stop, she is so far away from the curb. I don’t know whether I should feel sorry for her or if I should laugh at the absurdity of it all. Since she obviously cannot parallel park she needs a Lexus upgrade.
Whatever the case may be, I think that the driver who just drove into the spot was out of line. It really just doesn’t make a difference if the minivan driver knows how to park or not. The minivan was there before her so she just has to have the patience and the courtesy to wait it out and look for another spot. Like the bumper sticker says: "I may be slow but I’m ahead of you!".
This is another example of the impatience and rudeness of the people here. I think that when God was handing out patience no body here wanted to wait in line. : ) Why can’t people tolerate delays? It’s not like she had to go anywhere in a hurry. She just sat her car for 15 minutes waiting for her child to get out of school, like everyone else.
The arrogance of the people here never fails to amaze me. Just because the average salary in this area is higher than the national average, does not justify this attitude. I guess that you need to be born here to understand the rationale behind this because I just do not get it.
So goes another day on Wisteria Lane . : )
Until next time. Take care.
