I’m a pretty suppressed guy. Not Libyan suppressed, mind you, but emotionally suppressed. I get as stressed as the person next to me, but the person next to me is likely the one stressing me out. So I try to keep my composure like an anti-Charlie Sheen. It doesn’t work, necessarily, but it gets the lousy stinking job done. There’s situations, though, where people attack you on multiple fronts, and all that composure goes in the garbage.
So today I was trying to make it to an appointment at the hospital for me and my wife to get a tour of the maternity ward, as our baby is due in a few months. I dropped her off at the front entrance then proceeded on my way to find a parking spot. I had been there last week so we could register with the hospital, while at the same time a nurse’s union tour bus complete with news camera crews pulled up to the front to start a protest. The parking situation was a kerfuckle (TM). For a new hospital boasting it’s size, there was no parking. Anywhere. And parking costs $2.75 an hour. People and cramming themselves in to pay $2.75 an hour. For parking. I had to leave the entire grounds to find a spot, but every side street had strict no parking signs posted, for no good reason. These were little used residential cul-de-sacs about three lanes wide with no lines on the road even. Still, they don’t want you parking there. They want you parking at the hospital, and to pay for this privilege. Only, there’s no parking there. I eventually had to park next to a “Resident Parking Only” sign and hope I didn’t get towed over the next half-hour.
That was last week. Today, as I try to pull away from the entrance, a van stops in front of me, and stays stopped. There’s no room to go around him. There’s a car behind me, so I can’t back up. I can’t honk my horn because it’s a hospital quiet zone. He stays there for about three minutes. Eventually, a half-dead man hobbles up to the side door and gets in. I exhale, and I move on my way as they leave. I circle a few stalls in the parking lot, and finally find a space. Before I can, a car opposite the space starts to back up, so I have to stop, because they’re no going to. The car pulls out between me, and the empty space, and stops, and stays stopped across two lanes. There’s no way around the car, and no explanation for what the hell it’s doing. I wait two minutes. A lady comes out of the car, and walks over to me, and taps on my window, telling me in a Scottish accent, “Excuse me. I overpaid for my time in the parking metre and told the driver in the spot next to mine that she can have my spot instead…” There’s more, but I cut her off there.
“I’m kind of in a hurry here,” I said as a single word through gritted teeth as foam rose in the back of my throat. Have you ever been so mad that you can taste foam? It’s a peculiar substance produced in the back of the throat that’s like a mixture of bile and saliva. It’s like your body is tying to spit poisonous venom, but doesn’t have the necessary organs. It’s frothy, and leaves you feeling thirsty, thirsty FOR BLOOD.
I had to wait for the woman to get back in her car. I didn’t know what to do at this point, so I put my car in reverse and backed up two inches. It’s about forty feet to leave the lane for the intersection, and I wasn’t about to do that, just because I was where I wanted to be. I stopped, waited for her to move her car, then pulled into the spot I wanted, which incidentally isn’t her spot, and is factually closer to the hospital. I looked at no one as I exited the vehicle. I wondered about how casually telling someone as you get in your car that they can have your spot and not have to pay for parking becomes a sacred pact between two fated individuals and may require you to fight and die for their honour. WHO THE FUCK DOES THIS? I know it’s a hospital and people are sick and dying everyday, and drama’s high, but I shouldn’t have to entertain the thought of jacking some old lady’s car just to move it ten feet out of my way, then flipping her the bird and tossing her the keys. What was the worse thing that could have happened? The other driver would have lost her spot and vowed a bloody vengeance on the old lady and myself? There’s a difference between being a good Samaritan and being an ass. Plus, since I probably betrayed a hint of my true vehemence, she’s was probably swearing about me under her breath as she went back to her car. She probably called one of her friends and complained about how rude I was. Then her friend, having no life of her own, would have called two of her friends and so on and so forth, until I’m on a No-Fly List somewhere. Entire websites are then devoted to my downfall and I become a meme. People spit in my burgers intentionally, instead of just randomly.
I have so little faith in humanity lately that my paranoid delusions echo as the truth. It’s hard to trust anyone. When I take my kid to the park, I have to hover around him, or else I worry someone will try to report me as a pedophile. I delisted my employer as my employer on facebook because I worry someone will rat me out over a comment I make and I’ll end up being shit-canned. The other day, I put my hand on a rail inside an elevator and it came away covered in somebody’s snot and I imagined that someone had just horked a loogie on me from above. I almost looked up, even though I know it’s a completely enclosed space and no one would possibly be up there hiding like a fucking ninja. That’s how fucked up I think the world is. I have an instant dislike of anyone I haven’t met, and hence I don’t want to meet people. It’s a problem, but it’s a problem being reinforced by everyone around me. Any situation I don’t walk away from the richer for having been in it makes me worry. So a two-minute parking lot traffic snarl in which everyone is outwardly smiling and polite can leave me infuriated and reclusive for the rest of the day. Hence: the pent-up rage, which I then use to forge blogs and explode teenagers with carelessly tossed semtex in COD
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