Apparently I am an ignorant cow! The last time I have been called names was at the playground, but then: I haven't been really stubborn since then either.
It was during the run-up to Christmas, the festival of love, and it was at a car park. Car parks and good mood rarely go well together, I however was quite happily minding my own business. This business being to find a got spot. See, I am not good in parking my big trunk. I am fully capable to do all this reversing into a slot thing, but that doesn't mean that I like doing it. Hubby is different. For him it is a sport to be the smoothest, swift reverse parker that was ever seen. I am not like that; my aim is to find a slot to drive through, and as usually slots are aligned in double rows, I needed one where two nice wide slots behind each other were free.
And there it was, the perfect slot! Unfortunately on the wrong side, typical. The angle much to tight to get in. The plan was hatched to go round and to tackle it from the other side, hoping that no competitor with hubby-like skills would swoop in buttocks first.
Lucky, I was! Gently and carefully I manoeuvred the snout into the first of the slots, another car in front of me went past, I straightened the car and was half way in the second slot when I saw the rear of a car entering.
Stand-off!
This is where the stubbornness came in. Blood pressure rising I decided to defend my slot. I could have easily reversed into the first, perfectly fine slot, but then I would have had the hassle of reversing out of it later. And... I was as good as in already. So I just sat. Admittedly I would have felt better giving up, being the bigger person; ...I wouldn't be sitting here writing about it... This lady however seemed to be perfectly capable to reverse into any other slot, and there were plenty of them. There was only one that suited me.
She charged backwards a bit, I could hear the motor howling. Rika sitting stubbornly. She tried it again... the poor thing! By then every sentiment for the festival of love must have gone up in smoke. She dashed out, parked two slots down the row... she is good, she was faster in hers than I was in mine... well, maybe I am just really bad... However, by the time I left the car a really red face shouted across the car park, insisting repeatedly that I belonged to the species of milk producing creatures, that I stole her parking slot and that I swooped in from behind.
Well, she doesn't know me; as depicted before: When I drive there is no swooping, at least not in car parks. I however give her that: She could not have seen me. When she drove past, all she would have seen was a car in the first slot. Usually we do not notice if somebody is in the car. Car in slot means: parked! Thus to her it must have felt like somebody swooping in.
Each person's story represents the truth from their point of view, hence we were both right, and both wrong. There is no clear answer of who should have owned that slot. I used my stronger position to win - I was not blocking the street while waiting for her to give up - but that doesn't make it right from her point of view. There is one thing though that puts her entirely into the wrong: If we were to swap roles in this story, I may have closed my door a bit harder, I may have mumbled some swear words into my scarf, but I would not have called her names.
And next time I will give up. I now know that I can defend what I think is right, but sometimes it is just not worth it!
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