She looked me straight in the eye, rolled her window down just enough to speak, and smirked like I was a stray leaf stuck to her windshield. Then she said it — “Don’t have a coronary, honey.” Right after pinning my car door shut with her shopping cart in the middle of a freezing rainstorm.
I was soaked, humiliated, and holding melting ice cream, while she peeled off in her spotless white Range Rover like she owned the pavement.
But here’s the part she didn’t see coming: That smug smirk? It planted a seed. And next Tuesday, she’s going to learn what it feels like to be the one stuck, ignored, and wildly, gloriously inconvenienced.
The Tuesday Tyrant: That White Tank on Wheels
The glare off the FoodMart asphalt was already making my head ache, and it wasn’t even ten a.m. Tuesdays were my designated grocery assault days. Mark, my husband, called it my “strategic resupply mission,” which was his way of making my mundane errands sound vaguely heroic.
Lily, our perpetually unimpressed sixteen-year-old, just called it “when Mom disappears for, like, three hours and comes back stressed.” She wasn’t wrong.
I pulled my trusty, slightly dented Subaru into a spot near the back, hoping for some shade that hadn’t yet materialized. As I was cutting the engine, it glided into the spot two over from me – the white Range Rover. “Her,” I muttered, my hand tightening on the gear shift.
I didn’t know her name, of course. In my head, she was simply The Cart Deserter. Or, on bad days, The White Tank.
Every single Tuesday, regular as a badly timed alarm clock, she’d pull in, unload her mountain of organic, artisanal, probably-blessed-by-monks groceries into that gleaming beast. Then, with a casualness that bordered on performance art, she would shove her empty shopping cart into the vacant space directly beside my car. Not the cart return, mind you, which was usually a mere ten, maybe fifteen, feet away.
Oh no. That would require effort, a modicum of consideration for fellow human beings.
Today was no different. I watched, a familiar knot tightening in my stomach. Her blonde hair, perfectly coiffed, didn’t even ruffle as she slammed the automatic tailgate shut.
She gave the cart a firm, decisive push. It rumbled, its one wobbly wheel doing a little shimmy, and came to rest precisely in the middle of the empty spot. If I’d parked one space closer, it would have been kissing my passenger door.
“Unbelievable,” I whispered, shaking my head. It wasn’t just the laziness. It was the entitlement.
The sheer, unadulterated “my-convenience-trumps-all” vibe that radiated from her and her oversized vehicle. My job as a freelance graphic designer meant I spent a lot of time alone with my thoughts, meticulously arranging pixels and kerning letters. Maybe that’s why this blatant disregard for basic parking lot etiquette, this disruption of a perfectly good system, burrowed under my skin like a tick.
It was a poorly designed experience, and she was the glitch in the system.
A Game of Inches
A few weeks later, the White Tank was back, bold as ever. I’d actually managed to snag a spot closer to the entrance this time, a minor victory on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday. I was loading my own bags, trying to play a precarious game of Tetris with a jumbo pack of paper towels and a cantaloupe, when I heard the familiar rumble of an approaching shopping cart.
I didn’t even need to look. My internal Cart Deserter radar was screaming.
I peeked around my open trunk just in time to see her give her cart the usual shove. Only this time, the empty spot next to me wasn’t entirely empty. A small, sporty red convertible was parked there, its owner probably inside, blissfully unaware of the impending assault.
Her cart, propelled by that same indifferent force, careened towards the convertible.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I breathed. My heart hammered. It was going to hit.
It was going to leave a long, ugly scratch down the side of that shiny red paint.
At the very last second, the cart’s wobbly front wheel caught on a slight incline in the asphalt. It veered, shuddered, and stopped, its metal basket mere inches from the convertible’s fender. Inches.
I could feel my own shoulders tense, as if I’d physically willed it to stop.
The Cart Deserter, oblivious, was already sliding into her Range Rover. She didn’t look back. She never looked back.
Later that evening, I tried to explain it to Mark. “It’s not just about the cart, Mark. It’s the principle! She almost damaged someone’s car today.”
“What if that had been our car? Or Lily’s, when she finally gets her license?” My voice was higher than I intended.
Mark, bless his pragmatic heart, was scrolling through something on his phone. “So park further away, Sarah. Or just, you know, ignore her.”
“Life’s too short to get worked up about rogue shopping carts.” He looked up, gave me a quick, placating smile. “Want to watch that new documentary about competitive cheese rolling?”
Ignore her. Right. Like ignoring a persistent migraine.
I loved Mark, but sometimes his ability to compartmentalize and dismiss felt less like zen wisdom and more like a willful refusal to acknowledge the tiny, infuriating injustices that made daily life feel like navigating a minefield. “It’s not that simple,” I said, but he was already chuckling at something on his screen.
The Heavens Wept, And So Did My Patience
Then came the Tuesday of the Great Deluge. The forecast had promised “scattered showers,” which in Pacific Northwest parlance usually meant a light drizzle, easily thwarted by a decent raincoat. What we got was a full-blown, sky-opening, biblical torrent.
Rain hammered down in sheets, turning the FoodMart parking lot into a shallow, churning lake.
I’d made a desperate dash from my car to the store, already half-soaked. Shopping was a miserable, drippy affair, my shoes squelching with every step. Finally, laden with bags that felt twice their normal weight due to ambient moisture, I slogged back to my Subaru.
And there she was. The White Tank, parked majestically, its owner somehow looking immaculate despite the downpour. She was just finishing loading her groceries, her expensive-looking trench coat barely speckled with rain.
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