Saturday, April 6, 2013

Wow I'm so sorry about that. I can't imagine what I was thinking.

Yesterday evening the Contraption Captain and I are at the long light whose name is El Camino and Sand Hill.  If you're thinking that all of my bicycle stories are on the way to work or the way home you'd be right.  I'm basically a commuter type of bicyclist.  For special hundred mile tour accounts through Big Sur you are going to need to go elsewhere, at least until I hit the lottery or similar.

At the traffic light is one of my favorite pedestrians, also on the way home from work.  He's this classic old-skool Palo Alto type.  Older guy.  Tall.  Slim. Intelligent.  Fit.  He works at USGS and commutes by foot.  We greeted each other and he said that we had just missed one of those fairly typical rush hour interactions where as he put it "two over-entitled cars fought it out."  So we joke about cars which is pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel.

Then he told us of the following encounter.

He was in an underground parking garage, with his car.  He was waiting for a second car to pull out of a parking space so that he could park.  A big shiny black Mercedes pulled up behind him and became obviously agitated at having their way (briefly) blocked.  The parked car left and he parked his car and the woman in the black Mercedes rolled down her window and said...

"You inconvenienced me."

I don't know about the rest of you but I thought this explained so much about how people drive their cars and generally behave towards anything that slows them down.  I tried to think of a good response. Contraption Captain said that he applauded her honesty.

My supposed responses:

"Want me to come over there and inconvenience both headlights?"
"You've obviously mistaken me for one of your serfs."



4 comments:

  1. What would you expect of someone in a Nazi car?

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    1. Touche. My mother hates those cars for exactly that reason, but I had never heard them referred to as "Nazi cars" outside my family before today.

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    2. What does she think of Volkswagens?

      It is a pretty weird response. I mean, you're in an underground parking garage, where typically lanes are tight and cars are going in and out of spaces. What did she think was going to happen down there?

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    3. My Mom is apparently fine with Volkswagons! (my dad who is Dutch, and should have more of a horse in this race has no opinion) Mom hates the black Benz cars that she would see Hitler and his entourage being chauffeured around in in those old documentary newsreels that used to come before the feature.

      As for that woman? What a jerk. Somehow it makes it extra awful that my friend is a nice sixty something gent.

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