Enjoy your new scratches

I just LOVES me some T.J. Maxx.  We had such a good time there when I bought my too small jean shorts.

Check out Eva's studded heals.  Doesn't she look like she is doing that dance move where you grab your ankle and pull it back?  Oh, you don't know that one?  I can teach you.  Wanted to give you some fun pics, before I got my bitch on.

So today I went to T.J. Maxx to return some jean shorts I had purchased without trying them on, that were clearly too small, once I got them home, and to pick up an outfit for my daughter, Hallie, who was having her Strings concert (she plays the violin) and when I returned to my car, it had THIS note on the windshield.

If you can't read it, it says, "Awesome parking job.  Enjoy your new scratches."

I, then looked at my car, which was clearly askew, and crossed one of the parking line parameters, and I just felt, well, LOUSY.

I think the funny part of this story is that I proceeded to circle my car to look for the vandalism that was promised in the note, and I could not tell which scratches were "new".  I drive a 2004 Honda Pilot, and it has endured it's fair share of abuse, so I decided right then and there, that the joke was on the bitch who wrote the note.

Isn't it a beut?

If only it were that simple.

I got in my car, and much to my surprise I began to cry.  I am unable to decipher whether or not I was crying for humanity, or because I am so fragile due to the shitstorm that has been raining down upon me for the last 6 months.

Anyway, all I kept thinking was, "What sort of person would actually take the time to, I assume, park somewhere else in the lot, take out a piece of paper, and actually write such a thing?"  Then, she might or might not have (as I explained before) keyed my car, and then waltzed into the T.J.'s to peruse the merchandise.

I knew that it was a female due to the flowery writing, which I actually admired upon reading the script.

Once I got myself together, I just vowed to myself, that I would not raise a child that would EVER do that to another person.

I envisioned her watching me from her car as I circled my vehicle, as she texted her friends, and laughed.  The next part of my DREAM scenario involved her actually approaching me and accosting me due to my inferior parking skills.  I would, then, explain to her everything that was going on in my life and profusely apologize as she shrunk down in her Mom's hand me down Tahoe, or whatever, and I would be able to ruin her post coital shopping high, as she had ruined mine.

I have no idea if I had to park that way because of a neighboring car, or if I was just in a daze as I hurried about my errands, and raced the clock to meet my children at home after school.

Let's just assume that I was hurried, and self-centered enough not to notice what a shitty parking job I had created.  Who gives a fuck?

Listen, I am all about road rage, in the privacy of my own vehicle.  If nothing else, I have ingrained in my children that people are "morons" and they love to imitate how my Dad and I call everyone "buddy" when we are questioning the driving skills of everyone else on the road.

I am more than happy to pass this along.  Nothing would give me more pleasure than to ride with Hallie in the car one day as she expresses disgust at a person texting at a red light that has turned green, only to miss the green light entirely, and cause the line of vehicles behind them to endure yet another red light because she had to finish her status update on Facebook.

My point is, that we are all guilty of checking out while operating a vehicle.  While we do not cause accidents, or put others in harm's way, we do inconvenience other drivers from time to time.  If you do not cop to this, you are a LIAR.

It just takes a SPECIAL person to harass another human being for being self indulgent, because no one is immune to it.

Listen, I know that this seems like a rant, um, because it is...but don't we have the obligation to give each other a break, when one of us inadvertently violates a SOCIAL driving law?

There were plenty of other parking spaces in the lot.  I was there in the middle of the day.  I was not even close to the front of the lot.  None of this matters, I know, I am not in the slightest way, trying to defend my shitty parking job because in my mind, it is a non-issue.

The issue, here, and is my guidance today, is to GIVE EACH OTHER A BREAK.

You know what?  I WILL enjoy my new scratches, if I ever find them, because they will be a constant reminder to me to teach my children and myself to always be civil, and to always take the high road, because you can bet your life that we will (and have all been) in a situation where we make a mistake, and we inconvenience some stranger that we have never met, who is also in a hurry, or who is as excited as we are. to be at T.J. Maxx, and we will have the grace and the wherewithall (I love that word) to give that person a break, as we park two spaces over, because we are all HUMAN.