Throwback Thursday from June 2015 – “Excuse Me If I Destroy Your World”
Excuse Me If I Destroy Your World
THIS MORNING AS I WALKED into the Friendly Confines of St. Arbucks for my morning coffee I saw that The Usual Suspects were already deep in prayer, or whatever you want to call all of them talking at once.
When I slid into my pew it became obvious that they were all worked up about the Kroger store – just a Molotov Cocktails throw across the parking lot.
It seems that a number of early shoppers had been parking in the Fire Lane and the Handicapped (Gimp) Parking spots illegally.
“Well,” I thought to myself, “I’ll just sit here and take notes and today’s blog posting will write itself.”
They were complaining that blocking the Fire Lane was only dangerous and illegal, but messing with the Gimp Spots was grounds for Thermonuclear War.
I see people using the Gimp Spots all the time who don’t have either the proper plates or the ugly blue hangtag. Whenever I’ve mentioned that to the offending driver I am usually told to go do something to myself that is physically impossible. When the cliché Little Old Lady, who was 80 if she was a day, said that to me I was surprised.
I would have slugged her one, but she looked kinda tough.
For a good twenty minutes I sat and listened to a litany of stories about Gimp Spot Abuse. One pissed off Senior Citizen after another pushing the limits of their medication.
When I interrupted and asked them what they thought would be a good way to solve this problem I was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of caffeine laden solutions. Some of the answers sounded like they had been lifted from episodes of “Burn Notice.”
“Should we shoot them?”
“Who has any left over C4 explosives?”
“I know some people….”
Those ideas were tabled for further discussion.
One of the Suspects had tried complaining to the Kroger Store Manager and got nothing more than a shrug and some jive about it being, “A matter for the Police.”
Another idea that I think had merit, without the need for the inevitable casualties and the use of controlled substances or weaponry, was suggested by one of our younger and less medicated Suspects.
His idea was to quietly do something that he has been doing at a different store with the same problem. When he comes from the store, pushing his cart, he loads his purchases into his car and then places his empty cart behind the illegally parked vehicle. To make his point a little sharper he lays the cart on its side and slides it under the car a bit.
I like this guy.
It is a bit Passive/Aggressive. Perhaps a touch more on the Aggressive side, but still Passive enough to allow him to say, “Oops,” if confronted.
I’m going to try this one myself. Heck, I may gather up a few extra shopping carts and completely surround the offending vehicle.
Let the idiot figure that one out.
I am by nature a peaceful soul (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), but after a while even I can be pushed over to The Dark Side.
I don’t think that explosives would be the way to go. That would clog up the parking lot even worse than it already is. But a little non-violent counter-pissing-off might be appropriate. Most of the jerks I’ve seen involved in this creative Gimp parking look like overstuffed sofas with nothing deeper than Mountain Dew and Slim Jims on their mind. Any physical response from them would, without a doubt, start producing aneurysms and the disappearance of all vital signs in them.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Kroger, I will fear no evil.”
I will report on the effectiveness of this tactic. I feel confident that it will have positive results.
If it doesn’t – one of the Suspects did say that he knows some people ….
Down the Hall on Your Left 