I was hurring to the downtown campus for my Corporate Finance midterm. I resolutely ABHOR paying for parking at that time of day, so I had my eyeballs peeled for a street spot. A street spot! I spied one, signalled, and began reversing into the spot.
To my surprise, the car behind me had someone still in it who moved up as I was backing up into the spot. I slammed on the brakes and honked my horn. He honked his. We sat there, silent. I put the car in reverse again. He honked his horn again. I still needed about a foot and a half to go. I got out to have a look. We were almost 2 feet apart and he had about FOUR FEET between his car and the curb behind him. The curb, even! Not another car! The curb! Below is a visual for your complete understanding of the situation:
Anyway, I say to the guy:
Me: Hey, will you move back about another foot? I'm still in the road and I need to back up a little more.
Jackass: Naw. If I move back, you're gonna block me in and I won't be about to get out.
Me: (mind boggling at his terrible sense of spatial depth perception) Sir, I promise you will still have plenty of room to get out if you just back up a little more--you have plenty of room!
Jackass: (snorts in semi-positive way)
So I get back in the car, start to back up very slowly, and he puts his car in gear, and . . . CREEPS FORWARD and taps me! I leap out of the car and look at our bumpers. No damage. Now he has his window rolled up and is pretending to be on the phone.
I did not say this last sentence out loud. Instead, I backed up a couple more inches so I was juuuuuust inside the curb, got out, took a picture of the distance between our cars (cameraphone), then took a picture of his license plate.
As I was doing this, he rolled down his window and said something like:
Jackass: Okay, I'm going to follow (photo?) your car one day.
Me: What does that even mean?
Jackass: (silence)
Keep in mind that I am trying to make it to class for an exam. So I heave my bag and get going. And instantly regret this stand of defiance. For the next 2.5 hours I fret and worry and squirm about three main scenarios:
1. Windows smashed
2. Entire body keyed
3. Car completely gone
What did I learn? This was not a battle worth picking. I felt like I aged 9 years during that class. Afterwards, I spotted my car up the block with immense relief. Then I saw his car still parked behind mine. Was he lying in wait for me? Armed, I'm sure? Would this be the end? I waited until a big, tall guy walked by and then I walked next to him back to my car. He wasn't in the car at all. My car wasn't touched.
Pussy.
2 comments:
That happened to me one time in Boston. A-bone was driving and we were reversing into a space when someone came up from behind and did that sloppy park thing. So I told her to back it on up and got alongside and said, "seriously? Come on we totally had this spot." And these little assholes sneered and went "welcome to the big city!" and went into a bar. So I keyed it with "welcome to the big city assholes!" Because I had lived in bigger cities and stuff. Sigh. No I didn't key it. But I could have.
A similar scenario was the subject of an ancient Seinfeld episode in which George and a jackass had a complete stand-off that lasted a day and a night. But I laughed more at this blog entry than I did during that entire 22-minute episode, so perhaps you have a future writing for Larry David.
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