The other day (a little after dinner hour) I was slowly making my way around a Whole Foods or Fresh Farm parking lot, and I happened to drift into a one-way lane that was against the directional arrow. Speed-wise I was driving like an 88 year-old…nudge, nudge, putter, putter…and figured “okay, this won’t hurt anyone…it’s just a parking lot”.
But then along came a pink-faced, silver-haired fellow in a Volvo wagon with an overweight woman riding shotgun, and when he saw me inching my way forward in the wrong direction he went into Samuel Fuller Shock Corridor mode…an expression of major sputtering outrage. His window was halfway down and I could actually hear this 70something dingleberry going “haaayyyy!!!”
My reaction was to pretend I hadn’t seen or heard him. In actuality I was rolling my eyes and muttering to myself, “C’mon, man…it’s not like this is Planes, Trains and Automobiles and I’m John Candy in a devil costume, driving on the wrong side of the highway….’you’re going the wrong way! You’re going to kill somebody!’ And it’s not To Live and Die in L.A. with me speeding down a major highway against traffic and causing trucks to jacknife. It’s a parking lot, for God’s sake, and I’m going roughly 5 mph…get past it.”
The Volvo wagon outrage guy couldn’t do that. He had to turn up the outrage…”heaaayyyy!!!” I have news for guys like this — hay is for horses.