I Wonder If This Kind Of Thing Happened When Cowboys Tied Their Nags To A Hitching Post

The Universe is messing with Mrs. Hillbilly Mom again! She is not feeling the love to which she is entitled. It's as if her entitledness went on the fritz. Pennies are not winking up at her from the pavement several times a week. Every scratcher is not a winner. Not only do people not hold the door open for her, but they close it right in her face and hold it shut! Convenience store clerks give her the wrong lottery tickets. The Devil's Playground is out of tasty Chicken Bacon Ranch pinwheels. And you can bet her very special parking spaces are taken. TAKEN! Like theater seats at the Paradise Twin.

I don't have a special parking space at Save A Lot. There's a whole row, and aside from the three handicap spaces, I am comfortable parking anywhere. IN THAT ROW. Sometimes, the row is full, what with a laundry and Subway on one side of Save A Lot, and a Dollar Store on the other. Sometimes, I have to drive around to the other side of that row. There are usually not many people parked on that side.

Today I stopped by Save A Lot to get The Pony what he requested for Thanksgiving. He's not coming home, but Farmer H and I are going to visit him next weekend. Imagine the feast if The Pony had been in charge of the first Thanksgiving. He asked for "...lots of chocolate, Chex Mix if any is available, real butter, and Sister Schubert's rolls." You can bet that Chex Mix will be available for my little Pony. I still have lots of chocolate left from his Halloween care package. So all I needed was butter and rolls.We really like the real butter from Save A Lot. The Pony is getting a box of 4 sticks of butter. Sister Schubert, though, resides in the freezer case at Country Mart. So I had two stops to make.

The front row of Save A Lot parking was full, except for one space down by the Dollar Store that I judged to be too tight for me to comfortably open T-Hoe's door all the way. As I've mentioned, it only has two notches: all the way, and too narrow for me to get my knees in comfortably. No big deal. I went to the other side of the row. There was a large selection of spaces there. I chose one that was in between the two Save A Lot doors. Figuring people parking after me would want to park by one door end or the other. I cheated T-Hoe over a little bit, leaving extra room on my side to get that door open. Just in case someone parked beside me. I didn't feel guilty, because that space I was crowding had a big concrete base of a light pole in it, and people rarely park in that one.

You know what happened, right? When I came out with my real butter and a pint of slaw (!), I saw that a white truck had parked beside T-Hoe. On the driver's side. Over the line. So close, in fact, that I could not even get the door open to the too narrow for me to get my knees in comfortably notch. In fact, I couldn't even get my ARM inside enough to lay my phone on the console. As you might imagine, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom was not a happy camper. But camp out was what she had to do! To await the arrival of that driver (I use the term very loosely) and the exit of the truck.

Notice that there is no reason to pick that particular spot. There is no other car nearby. The dude pulled all the way through, and the stores are actually behind him.

This backward angle is actually what put me in a pickle. Notice that White Truck Dude can swing his door open and get out. But that when I open T-Hoe's door, it hits the mirror. I did not really make physical contact, but I wish I'd beat the Not-Heaven out of that guy's mirror. I could only get the door open a few inches.

Sooo...I had to walk around and sit in the passenger seat until White Truck Dude came out. An interlude of about 10 minutes. Oh, yeah! I took a picture of him, too! That's as assertive as I got. You know I was muttering unkind things about him under my breath, though.

I normally don't post pictures of strangers on the innernets. But this guy really irked me. Even if I was a bony old gray-haired dude, I would not have been able to squeeze through the crack that T-Hoe's driver's door could open. So don't point the finger at Mrs. HM for being a portly thick creaky knee-joint-challenged matron.

Once White Truck Dude slithered behind the wheel and drove off, I hopped out of the passenger seat and hobbled around to get in. I headed for Country Mart for The Pony's requested rolls. Farmer H scoffed at my folly, saying we could just go to a Devil's Playground in Norman and buy them there. However...he has obviously not been in charge of preparing Thanksgiving dinner before. Because Sister Schubert's Rolls are an endangered species on the weekend before Thanksgiving. One year, we had to do without, and partake of Sister Schubert's square yeast rolls, which were not the same as the little rolls crammed in a silver pie pan.

Anyhoo...I drove over to Country Mart, taking my life in my hands, because a crazier group of drivers I'd never seen outside of a high school incentive day at a bumper car park. My special parking place at Country Mart was taken, but I didn't mind, because I had the next best thing only four spaces over.

Uh huh! I parked way down at the end of the building! NOBODY was going to pull up and pin me out at this store. I was in the last parking spot. Nobody could park beside me.

Or could they?

Take a look at THIS:

Not the white car. It's parked just fine. In fact, it's two spaces down from my rightful parking spot, which was empty by the time I got out to walk in. No, I'm not talking about that white car. Look behind it. That reddish SUV. You may think it's driving along the main road in front of the store, on the wrong side. But NO! It's PARKED! Parked BESIDE a parking space.

SWEET GUMMI MARY! You can see that there is no shortage of spaces. No need to park NOT IN one! There were even six or seven of the handicap spaces open.

WHAT, exactly, is wrong with people these days? The Universe and Even Steven and their sidekick, Karma, better be working on something fabulous to make up for this...