If you were to ask my husband to rate my typical level of anxiety on a scale of say, Unflappable to Loony Bin Candidate, I would probably fall a bit to the right of center somewhere around Calm Down, Already. I try to keep my cool. Really, I do. And honestly, I think I am getting better at it with each new day. My husband may beg to differ. However, after what I experienced today, I think even the most comatose person would have made a beeline for the "Adult Beverages" aisle.
This week is our week to provide snacks for the social playgroup Reiss goes to a few times per week and, contrary to his five-year-old mentality, the 3-ounce bag of gluten-free pretzels and package of cookies he picked out are not going to get him and his nine friends through three afternoons of snacktimes.
So off to the grocery I went this morning with Milla in tow.
We got there. We pulled in the parking lot. Finding a space was a piece of cake. I got Milla out of the car and we were having a little snuggly time with me carrying her because there were no carts to put her in and she did not want to walk.
As I was walking, as I always do, I was looking out for people who might be backing out of their spaces, unaware of my presence. Knowing how people drive, I am
always on the lookout in parking lots. My husband calls this overprotective. I call it a necessary precautionary measure. And thank goodness I do it because today was the day Milla and I darn near became parking lot roadkill, thanks to Mr. Methuselah. No, I did not actually catch Mr. Senior Citizen's name and if you don't know who Methuselah is, just Google it....I've got a story to tell here.
So Methuselah, who was very large, was driving his nearly-dragging-the-ground silver Ford Taurus with - I am assuming - Edna, who was most certainly a Lane Bryant shopper, sitting in the front passenger side and Cujo in the backseat when he began to back out of his space, obviously without looking in his rearview mirror - because if he had, he would have seen that plain as day, were Milla and I, right smack behind his back bumper. Were it not for my quick-stepping from behind his car, Methuselah would surely be in jail right now for vehicular homicide.
Needless to say, I was a bit shaken up. This was no close call. It was as close as it gets to being run over without actually being run over. Better judgment may have directed me to leave it alone and keep walking but instead, I chose to give a little tap on Edna's window. She rolled her window down and I informed Methuselah that he had "just about run over me and my child."
Edna replied, "I'm sorry?" as if it were a question.
And why was she doing the talking, anyway? She was not the one driving. Whatever...at that time, I
did choose to leave it alone and began walking towards the store. And here is where the story gets interesting.
Correct me if I am wrong, but would it not be prudent for anyone who is driving in a parking lot to actually watch where he or she is driving? That's what I would think. Apparently, I am in the wrong though, because Methuselah then rammed his car into Drive and started driving
towards me, as if he was going to run over me from the front......and this time,
on purpose!
Heart-pounding and gripping Milla with a death-hold, I slipped in between two cars with the thinking that doing so would provide safety from the psycho. Surely, this old fart wouldn't ram the cars too, would he?
Methuselah did not ram the cars and aside from the not-so-longterm psychological trauma, he did not harm Milla or me but what he did next shocked me to no end. He slammed his brakes on, rolled his window down, and yelled at
me to "Watch where in the H... you're going!"
Seriously????
That old fart was lucky I had Milla with me and the mama lion mode in me was in high gear because I cannot guarantee that
I would not have been the one in jail right now if Milla had not been with me. But I did not go after Methuselah. No, I let out a string of obscenities no mother wants their two-year-old to hear, much less allow her to hear come out of her own mother's mouth while in the arms of said mother.
Perhaps he saw my bark was worse than anything his scraggly Cujo could conjure up and thankfully, he pulled away without any further psychotic attempts at bodily harm or interaction with me. With that, I then began walking towards the store once again, making that aforementioned beeline straight to the wine aisle, where I so appropriately honored the occasion by picking out a bottle of vintage 2007
FAT bastard.
Luckily, so far, Milla has not repeated anything she heard earlier this morning. Pass the wine....I'll drink to that!
