Do unto others.....

Sometimes I think there is hope for civility of us humans toward one another, and sometimes I wonder. Occasionally a nice thing happens (like the nice man that let me in front of him in line at Starbuck’s because he noticed I drove in the parking lot first) and then there are those other times. Our little shopping center (San Souci) is somehow always a good place to witness man’s inhumanity to man. For those of you familiar with the place, you know that the Post Office is in a store front in the shopping center. As with most (all?) post offices, there is a set of “drop off” mail boxes positioned on the curb to accommodate those people who would like to just deposit their mail and not go inside. Although there are signs saying “no parking” and things about towing, nobody pays the least attention to it. Just before we left for our trip, I was going to go inside and get something, so I parked in a vacant parking place in the lot. As I got to the post office, I noticed a car in front of the drop off boxes, pointing the “wrong way” i.e., with the passenger side to the boxes, and the car was stopped and vacant. A couple of cars had to pause in the traffic lane, get out and deposit the mail. As I waited in line, I kept my eye out, and eventually a fit and hardy looking young man casually strode out of the post office box area, got in the car, had to do some fairly cute maneuvering to avoid the other cars trying to get to the boxes and drove off..no look of apology was noticed

Today, I wanted to deposit some mail (I always go inside), so after finding a parking spot a fair ways away from the post office (lunch time at San Souci) I was heading toward the door when a big SUV drove into one of the handicap parking spaces (will almost in, it was at an angle) close to the post office. By habit I checked the license plate, nope, not a handicap. Tag on the mirror? Nope. So, I then observed the driver, who was apparently rummaging in her purse and eventually the blue tag came out and was hung on the mirror. What emerged was a woman probably in her early twenties, looking very fit. Crutches? Cane? Cast? Nope, a sprint across the road into the lobby of the post office. Checked the post office box, threw a couple of ads away, out the door, striding perfectly well back to the car, tag off the mirror, away we go. I see that all the time.

What the H—L is the matter with people? Me first! Ha ha, loser - you had to park in a regular spot. How many times have you seen somebody who could use a little assistance have to park someplace else because one of these morons somehow chiseled an un-needed tag and filled up the spaces.. arggghhh

And, it’s not limited to parking lots. I can’t tell you how many times on the trip we would begin to approach a slower moving 18 wheeler, with plenty of time to pull out and pass even under cruise control only to see that car that was behind you (in either lane, it doesn’t make much difference) tromp on it so that: a) you are prevented from pulling out for fear of a collision, or b) if you do get out they are kissing your bumper all the way around the truck.

Or here’s an actual incident. We passed a truck, and before we could pull back in the right lane the car (just) behind us, darted to the right, sped past us and continued along at a pretty good clip. There was a long stretch of clear right lane ahead of him, but there was another car maybe a quarter of a mile ahead out in the left lane (another story, not now). Speedy guy had ample room to continue in the right lane and pass the other person without any particular trouble. Nope! Pulls out into the left lane, charges up right behind said car, actually puts on brakes, follows for 10 seconds, the darts right again. There must be a place in heaven for these guys..or maybe lower.

Not much culinarily to report except I made a very nice frittata for yesterday’s brunch..for which we were

DFB

Oh, PS, happy birthday Sir Issac!! – be sure to go to Google today….