#37 Beef

I shouldn’t have parked in that spot because there was a sign. I read it, ignored it, and put the emergency light away to say, “It’s only a minute, I’m just taking care of the mail in the post office next door!” Still, my message might have come across as “I don’t care about you, I’m a stupid privileged woman whose only purpose in life is to wreck your day,” because as I was handing my post in the counter, someone entered the store, cursing and demanding whose car was that…

I apologised profusely and told him I was about to leave the store, and he yelled at me. I knew I was wrong, so I asked the gentleman at the counter to excuse me while I moved the car, and so I did. As I was heading out the door, I could hear him cursing, telling me all kinds of things, and the only thing I could think was why I had been so optimistic, to think everything would be okay that cloudy morning.

I entered the car, and as I started to move backwards, I heard the truck driving towards me. Every time I moved, he did the same, until I got stuck between a truck and two other cars. My legs started shaking, and I remembered all the times I had told my kids to breathe whenever they felt they were losing control. I rolled down the window and looked up. I could see the anger in his face, and I didn't want to escalate what was already going way too far, but I knew what would happen if we kept playing the cat-and-mouse game.

“I need space, please let me out!” I yelled.

He advanced once more, and I saw the people from other stores in the street looking at that spectacle.

He pointed at me and then to the front, but I couldn’t move in that direction without hitting anything, so instead, I moved again to the front, drove the car to the sidewalk and turned the truck around. I was terrified, convinced that he was about to pull back and hit me, but then I saw a man talking to him, asking him to drive forward.

I parked the car, took a deep breath and walked to the post office. I took care of my post, apologised again for the show—to which I was told not to worry—and walked back to my car, with my legs shaking and feeling… well, I don’t know how I was feeling. Bad? Bad, does not cover half of it. I could only think what could have happened if I had gone “full rage road mode”, like in that TV series, where a couple of people destroy each other’s lives after an incident in a parking lot.

I arrived home, sad and ashamed—nothing would have happened if I had respected the sign—and I sat at my desk. I could have continued with the “regular work”, but instead, I decided to write this —a sincere apology to the universe. In the other tab of my browser, I’m checking my insurance coverage.

Just in case.