Flashback Friday: Attention shoppers! There's a lunatic on aisle three.

Today we're flashing back to January 22, 2010.  Below is a post (from my former blog) about my harrowing run in with Road Rage Randy. 

Road rage. I think we've all been tailgated and flipped off a time or two by a hot-headed jerk whose mama neglected to teach good manners. But have you ever been a victim of parking lot rage?

My mom has been having car trouble, so she asked me to take her by the grocery store after she got off work today. I'd already done my grocery shopping earlier in the day, so I took the opportunity to go across the street to another store to return a purchase. Afterward, I pulled into the loading zone at the grocery store to wait for my mom to come out. She'd said she only had a few things to get, and I figured she wouldn't know where I was parked otherwise.

So I'm sitting there, just chilling, listening to the radio--when a gray-haired, red-faced guy pulls up behind me in a giant extended cab Chevy. He honks his horn. For a long time. Clueless me thinks, He must see someone he knows! The guy honks again. Longer this time. I look in my rear view mirror. He seems to be talking to himself. I get out of the car (smart, right?) and say matter-of-factly, "I'm just waiting for my mom to come out. I'm not in the red zone or anything." He yells over me, "GO PARK IN A REAL F-ING PARKING SPOT! GET THE HELL OUT OF THE LOADING ZONE!" He continues to cuss at me. Noting his increasingly red face, I helpfully reply, "Sir, I think you need to take your blood pressure medicine. Seriously, you're gonna have a heart attack." I get back in my car. But I don't move the car. (He's not the boss of me!)

I'm confused at this point, because I know I'm not doing anything wrong. In fact, there are three other cars lined up in the loading zone in front of me. Harassing Honker is in the loading zone as well! For those of you who need a visual, I drew up a little sketch of the scene. (Which displays the sum total of my artistic ability...)

Click to enlarge.

Seething Store Guy stays parked behind me yelling at me through his window. A good ol' country boy (God love 'em) about my age comes over and tells my Ticked-off Tormentor 1. to leave me alone, 2. that I'm not doing anything wrong, 3. that I can park where I want 'cuz it's a free country, and 4. that HE can go park the hell somewhere else. (Booyah!)

I thank Chivalrous Country Boy for standing up for me and he leaves. I stay in my car. Parking Lot Pesterer pulls up right beside me and turns diagonal so that I'm blocked in. He just sits like that for a couple minutes. I'm getting a little scared at this point. The guy is obviously a nut and I have no idea what he's going to do next. Since becoming a mother, I value my life too much to take the kind of risks I would have when I was younger. So rather than grab a tire iron and redecorate his tail gate, I do what civilized grownups do--call the police.

Hypocritical Heckler pulls into a loading zone between two handicap parking spaces and goes into the grocery store, calling me an f-ing b---- the entire walk to the doors. I'm still on the phone with the Five-O while this is happening. A second later Red-faced Ruffian comes out of the store, gets in his illegally parked truck, and leaves. Perhaps he saw the police officer that my mom told me was standing right inside the store. Who knows. After he left, I told the police dispatcher that I didn't need an officer to come--but I gave her Agitated Antagonizer's license plate number and truck description just in case he decides to go harass someone in front of the pharmacy.

My mom came out and I told her the story. She was like, "You should have called me! I'd have put my foot up his---..." And she would have.

So that was my Friday night. How was yours?