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Why was the woman upset? Were you taking up multiple parking spots and she was concerned that several other cars wanted to park there, too?
This kind of thing is not unusual. I've been remarking about the prevalence of what I call "parking lot rage" (a strange variation of road rage) for a few years now. I once parked in a huge empty parking lot on a Sunday morning to get some groceries. Since there was no one else there but employees' cars, I didn't worry about parking exactly square between the lines marking the space. When I returned to my car, someone had left a nasty note on my windshield about overlapping the line. I could go on with other stories, but I won't.
There was no reason for her to leave a complaint on the OP's car. Though I'm wondering how she caused the car to rock back and forth....? I don't understand this business of leaving nasty notes on people's windshields when the driver/parker isn't doing any harm to anyone. As I said, I can only chalk it up to road rage, meaning that people carry a lot of anger and frustration around with them, and take it out on others irrationally.
P.S. OP, I'm impressed that you're aware that the size of your vehicle can crowd out other cars in a standard lot, and that you made the effort to park farther away. I wish more people did that. It can be an extremely tight squeeze into parking spaces when a huge SUV or truck or van parks right on the line of their spot. I'm starting to think parking lots should have a set of parking spaces on one side that are designed for larger cars.
I get drowsy on long or monotonous drives and will stop for a power nap, usually only 15 or 20 minutes. I always use a parking lot in an out-of-way spot and no one has ever bothered me. I understand why a bank employee might be concerned about a vehicle there for a long period of time, but a regular customer is just being nosy and the OP doesn't say she was there long in the first place.
Yep, I do the same thing when I'm traveling or when, as now, I'm recovering from surgery. It was the first major surgery I've ever had and I didn't realize how long it would take to bounce back. I take several naps a day. That's part of the reason we bought the van.
There are actually a goodly number of oversize vehicles parked around Silicon Valley. Everyone understands that it's because people are living in them and working locally, or they're just RV full-timers passing through and they'll move on tomorrow. I could almost see being concerned that someone might be living in the bank's parking lot, particularly if your house is next to the lot. Or being worried that there was someone passed out inside. I would have reacted a lot differently if that were the case. Being well-meaning counts for a lot.
There was no reason for her to leave a complaint on the OP's car. Though I'm wondering how she caused the car to rock back and forth....?
Oh, I didn't explain that. It's a tall vehicle built on a MB Sprinter chassis. To reach the windshield wiper she'd have to push up against the vehicle and stretch for it.
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I don't understand this business of leaving nasty notes on people's windshields when the driver/parker isn't doing any harm to anyone. As I said, I can only chalk it up to road rage, meaning that people carry a lot of anger and frustration around with them, and take it out on others irrationally.
Yours is probably the best explanation. It certainly makes sense to me. And this, as you know, is a very crowded area -- and getting more so daily. It reminds me of that famous experiment done on the effect of overcrowding on rat social behavior.
Though I have to admit some of the most tightly-wound people I've ever encountered have been Volvo drivers...
More irony...
The thing is...okay, some people CAN be annoying. Sure. Even to strangers. But screaming, wadding the paper and throwing it at the lady, tantruming about a $600 part that was going to be destroyed because there was a piece of paper underneath it? You really can't see the degree of your reaction as over-the-top and rather anger issues-ey?
I probably would have said something but I'm sure I wouldn't have been yelling and throwing anything. Especially at a very old person. God only really knows what she's going through. Maybe she has cancer, maybe all her friends are dead and she has nobody left, maybe age has betrayed her and she wakes up every morning in pain, who the heck knows? SAYING SOMETHING is appropriate in order to tell a person she has done something inappropriate but the things you describe here are just beyond that and so seriously angry. I just don't know...
BTW...I'm with Ruth: how on earth did she rock the van?? Did I understand that correctly?
Also, one more thing and I mean this in the gentlest way, since none of us is perfect, after all. If you're having repeated similar issues - altercations with strangers over really weird things...well, what's the common denominator here? It isn't possible you're going around with anger and a "just TRY and mess with me" attitude, or anything like that? Maybe not in the truck, as you were asleep, but in the other issues you describe, such as the donut. When people perceive that a person near them is antisocial, negative, etc. it absolutely will impact how they feel and how they react to the person. Again...just common sense to look for the common denominator rather than assuming "I'm perfect, and the rest of the world is crazy." Again, I'm not being superior or snotty. All of us have to do a bit of introspection from time to time. Just something I hope you'll think about.
I live in SoCal, BTW. Not NorCal but I saw someone else bring up SoCal. I have never run into a nicer bunch of people.
The thing is...okay, some people CAN be annoying. Sure. Even to strangers. But screaming, wadding the paper and throwing it at the lady, tantruming about a $600 part that was going to be destroyed because there was a piece of paper underneath it? You really can't see the degree of your reaction as over-the-top and rather anger issues-ey?
I probably would have said something but I'm sure I wouldn't have been yelling and throwing anything. Especially at a very old person. God only really knows what she's going through. Maybe she has cancer, maybe all her friends are dead and she has nobody left, who the heck knows? SAYING SOMETHING is appropriate in order to tell a person she has done something inappropriate but the things you describe here are just beyond that and so seriously angry. I just don't know...
BTW...I'm with Ruth: how on earth did she rock the van?? Did I understand that correctly?
Also, one more thing and I mean this in the gentlest way, since none of us is perfect, after all. If you're having repeated similar issues - altercations with strangers over really weird things...well, what's the common denominator here? It isn't possible you're going around with anger and a "just TRY and mess with me" attitude, or anything like that? Maybe not in the truck, as you were asleep, but in the other issues you describe, such as the donut. When people perceive that a person near them is antisocial, negative, etc. it absolutely will impact how they feel and how they react to the person. Again...just common sense to look for the common denominator rather than assuming "I'm perfect, and the rest of the world is crazy." Again, I'm not being superior or snotty. All of us have to do a bit of introspection from time to time. Just something I hope you'll think about.
I live in SoCal, BTW. Not NorCal but I saw someone else bring up SoCal. I have never run into a nicer bunch of people.
I agree, I can count on one hand over many years the number of altercations I have had in Southern CA and still have fingers left over.
Interesting, Fluffy had another post about an altercation in a store also with an old woman.
I wonder if we replaced old woman with a 25 year old guy if she would be so quick to get in someone's face?
When you keep having altercations in public you have to look at your behavior.
I agree, I can count on one hand over many years the number of altercations I have had in Southern CA and still have fingers left over.
Interesting, Fluffy had another post about an altercation in a store also with an old woman.
I wonder if we replaced old woman with a 25 year old guy if she would be so quick to get in someone's face?
When you keep having altercations in public you have to look at your behavior.
Really? Considerately parking out of the way in a sparsely-parked lot, then falling asleep in the back of one's car is provocative or belligerent behavior? Whatever the OP's history is, is irrelevant in this case. The OP may have over-reacted, but s/he did nothing to provoke an angry note directed at him/her. The other driver appears to have sought out the OP's back corner of the parking lot for no apparent reason, and invented a grievance. Though this may sound unlikely, I'm one who can vouch for irrational behavior like this coming from complete strangers. Parking lot rage is real, and it happens even in small towns like the one I currently live in. Civility has become old-fashioned and endangered.
Really? Considerately parking out of the way in a sparsely-parked lot, then falling asleep in the back of one's car is provocative or belligerent behavior? Whatever the OP's history is, is irrelevant in this case. The OP may have over-reacted, but s/he did nothing to provoke an angry note directed at him/her. The other driver appears to have sought out the OP's back corner of the parking lot for no apparent reason, and invented a grievance. Though this may sound unlikely, I'm one who can vouch for irrational behavior like this coming from complete strangers. Parking lot rage is real, and it happens even in small towns like the one I currently live in. Civility has become old-fashioned and endangered.
Ruth, I don't think it's irrelevant. I think it behooves any of us who are having repeated issues to look into why.
You hit the nail on the head with "appears to." We don't know the whole story. We DO know that a. the old woman's behavior does sound really odd IF the situation happened just as described (none of us were there) and b. the poster seems to keep having issues like this...and I'm sorry...the natural proposition would be that the OP does indeed have something to do with her repeated issues. Either that, or she has VERY bad luck. We can't know which and perhaps the OP is 100% innocent of any wrongdoing, that is absolutely a possibility, but just in case, can it really hurt to ask oneself, "hey, I seem to keep having run-ins where I end up screaming and throwing things at people. Do I have anything at all to do with this?"
As for your last comments, yes, one other possibility is that this lady was unhinged. Sure. There are unhinged people out there. But again...that possibility is kind of reduced when it becomes something of a pattern...how many of us just happen to repeatedly be the ones running into "the crazies"? If it were me I'd want to look deeper into the "why" possibilities. JUST if it were me. The OP doesn't have to but I think this is why some of us are suggesting the OP look for other causes than: the entire world is crazy but she herself, the OP, is totally sane and above-board.
I had the unfortunate displeasure of being stationed in Ca for four years. I can thoroughly understand the OP. Right from our first introduction at the state line until we breathed a sigh of relief four years later on leaving, we encountered some of the most wound up, strange, and self important people anywhere. Including several parking lot run ins where people seemed to be looking for a reason to show their self righteousness. Never felt so unwelcome in any other state we were in.
Sorry to serial-post...this is probably it for a bit and you shall be rid of me shortly, LOL. But for some reason this particular situation is just "speaking" to me.
I had what I felt was an "unfair" situation last Halloween with an elderly lady. I took my kids trick-or-treating around our neighborhood as usual. (We LOVE this...my family lives for Halloween, LOL.) But for the first time, my kids asked to ToT at the condos across the street from us. Until then we'd only ever done houses.
So we went in there and ToTd at a particular condo and this elderly lady answered the door. She held out a bucket of candy and told the kids, "Take what you want." My kids are extremely polite and are called "gentlemen" wherever we go, a real throwback. BUT she did say "take what you want" and apparently my littlest thought that meant a couple of pieces, so he reached for I think two pieces.
She snatched the bucket back and said "JUST ONE" in an angry tone. I was so embarrassed because my son had come off as greedy. He's not...he can have candy at other times...it's not the candy really that my kids love about ToTing...it's showing all the neighbors their costumes, running around at nighttime which is so unusual for little kids to do, etc. But I was embarrassed. I opened my mouth to give a quick explanation but she cut me off, "He certainly is aggressive" or something like that.
I was pretty shocked by that comment. I couldn't say anything, she closed the door.
Of course I cried (not literally, LOL) to my friends about this mean old lady who had snapped at my sweet child and blah blah...and one of my friends told me, "You know, JerZ, you don't know what this old lady is going through. Maybe she's on a fixed income and she could only afford one bag of candy and more than one piece would mean all the candy was gone early in the night...maybe she's in pain, her hip hurts...maybe her own grandkids never come to see her and she's angry that her chance at being a mom to loving little kids is over with now...maybe the kid just before your kids took a giant handful of candy and ran away and was a jerk about it...you don't know."
She was so right. How the hell do I know? And what did she REALLY do...she didn't hit my kid or anything. She didn't call the police and have him dragged in for theft of candy. She just got snappish. And, I felt, inappropriate. But not in some ridiculous way or anything. I mean big friggin' deal...a person who isn't perfect...not exactly newsworthy, that.
I think this is why I'm asking the OP to have some perspective. What did that old lady really do? Put a note under her windshield wiper? So what? I don't consider that crazy aggressive or an offense deserving yelling and threatening about costs and throwing papers. When we're wronged, or think we are, we don't necessarily see things from the other person's perspective. But there are two sides to every story. So that's all I'm saying.
Lesson learned...well, at least for me.
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