The Perils of the Parking Lot

Man, people get absolutely crazy while trying to do that last minute shopping before the holidays!  I just got back from the store, where I spent almost an hour buying a sleeve of celery, cool whip, and a couple of other odds and ends.  I'm mad at myself, because the celery and cool whip were the only things I "needed" for Thanksgiving - they were on sale at Hyvee, and I was too cheap yesterday to pay an extra 80 cents and pick those up while at Target.  (I did get some other really good deals since I had to go, but I would have passed on those and just enjoyed my day off if I hadn't needed those couple of things.) 

I had lucked into a prime spot, one of the first couple of spaces in the main aisle in front of the store.  So as I was unloading my cart and returning it, someone stopped to wait for the spot.  I was close enough to the beginning of the row that this left them with the tail end of their car blocking the main lane that runs along front of the store.  This, apparently, quite irked the car behind them, who began honking.  I hadn't even had a chance to get my cart parked in the return and get into my car to leave, so the honking car wasn't exactly showing much patience.

So the car that wanted my spot pulled forward a bit to try to get their back end out of the way - only in doing so, they didn't leave me room to get out.  So now you have me in my car with no way to back out of the spot without hitting someone, the spot-coveting car that is not going to give up on that spot, and the honking car that has also pulled forward leaving no room for the spot-coveting car to back up allowing me more room and that continues to honk.  It was quite the fun scene to be involved in.

I had tried several ways of signalling my stuckedness, but the car just sat there with it's blinker on signaling for my spot.  And I do have the reverse camera option in my car, so I can definitely say I wasn't just being overly cautious or anything.  I was thinking I was going to need to get out of my car, which I don't like to do because you don't know how crazy the other person might be, but a store employee who was out to gather up carts knocked on covetous-car's window and told the driver they needed to move on and stop holding up traffic.  It was quite airport-esque.

I can report that covetous car driver had quite the potty mouth, and that honking-car was rewarded for its obnoxiousness with a prime parking spot.  But no cars - nor me - were harmed in the making of the melodrama, so all is well.