I guess I was naïve. I expected understanding and willing cooperation. We were meeting for dinner at Cooperstown and Cindy and I got a table for four. I went back outside to meet Ronda and Abbie. The parking lot is too small. Ronda got a spot, but Abbie was never in the right place at the right time in this musical chairs game of parking. I could tell that a lot of people who came after her had gotten spots and after she had circled a bunch of times I decided to go out to where a car was leaving to help hold the spot. Waiting behind the car that would soon be backing out was a big, red pickup with one middle-aged man in it and Abbie’s faded blue Toyota Corona was behind him. His window was rolled down so I walked up and explained that my daughter was behind him and she had circled ten times now and asked if he could let her have the spot that was coming open. He asked if I was kidding and as I said “no” I quickly started to realize it was not amazement about how long she had been waiting for a spot, but perhaps amazement at my gal to ask him to give up the spot. So to check what was happening I said (in what I thought was a kind tone), “Is that a problem?” At the same time as he replied, “Yeah,” he drove his pickup forward. I didn’t know if he was going to turn into the spot that was now open, but he went on past. After Abbie parked I learned the ten fingers she held up the last time she went by me meant the number of cars she counted that came into the lot after her and had gotten parking spots before her.

The man in the pickup surprised me—and made me a little less naïve.