Today is the last day of school and while I was driving my eight year old through ye olde carpool line it occurred to me that - in the fall, when we return and the parking lot situation has been remedied - the carpool scene might be a tad more tolerable. Then I woke up to the reality that the carpool scene would only be made tolerable through forced euthanasia. Of them. Not me. Or maybe me depending on how close other people’s rudeness drives me to the brink of “let’s just call it a day and end the human race already”.

So there I was; bloodying my head against my steering wheel trying to find a parking spot amidst the moving vehicles from which little yuppie children were being cast by hurried parents because daddy’s Very Important Meeting and mommy’s Appointment With Sven The Personal Trainer trumps The Safety Of One’s Offspring. 

Again with the run-ons.

I finally found a parking spot in a dirt lot roughly thirty miles from the school and was making my way in when I noticed my son’s teacher struggling to get our of her car and into the dirt lot.

My son’s paraplegic teacher. Struggling to assemble her wheelchair. In the unforgiving dirt of a rutted lot twelve parsecs away from civilization. She couldn’t have been further from her classroom if she had parked in Lodi.

So what was she doing here and not, say, parked in her regular spot located closer to the school on easily navigable asphalt? The one equipped with a wheelchair ramp? That is clearly marked with a large blue and white handicapped sign?

It would seem that one of the parents - in their hurry to be as big an asshole as the laws of physics allow - had aced the teacher out of the handicapped spot because she was “in a hurry”. What’s more, the able-bodied parent who parked in the handicapped spot was more than aware of the teacher’s need for that spot because her own child was in said teacher’s classroom.

All of this was made all the more rankling when - in the course of helping my son’s teacher make her way out of the not-at-all-wheelechair-friendly part of the parking lot - said parent returned to her vehicle, smiled cluelessly, and said:

“Hey Mrs. [teacher’s name]! Why didn’t you park here? Isn’t it easier for you to get in from this spot?”

…and that’s when the almighty hand of God himself burst forth from the heavens and bitch slapped the parent and tore her minivan asunder.

Just last weekend I walked out of my local Raley’s to find that my vehicle had been blocked in by someone driving a black Ford SUV. I didn’t think much of it until after I had spent an inordinate amount of time buckling my daughter into her car seat and loading my groceries into the back before jingling my keys in the direction of the offending SUV’s driver to indicate that yes! I am planning on, like, getting in my car and driving away now because that’s what we really good parkers do around here: we steer our vehicles into an available space and then? When we’re done shopping? We return to our vehicles and vacate the space for the next person.

Well, despite the availability of dozens of parking spaces Mr. Ford Driver was having difficulty grasping this simple concept. After several minutes of patiently waiting for him to notice my back-up lights at his passenger-side window he hadn’t budged an inch.

I was a little perturbed but managed to behave in a calm manner as I got out of my vehicle to point at it before making little finger-walking motions out of the space to indicate that yes, I did in fact want to leave now and would he please pick an actual parking spot and like, move?

I thought I had taken care of the problem. Surely one would move if - in the course of idling in the middle of a parking lot they had received indication that their car was blocking another? I jumped back into my car and patted myself on the back. After all, I had behaved with civility and managed to avoid murdering a “special” citizen.

Dude didn’t move.

I began to wonder why this guy hadn’t remained on the short bus where his people usually ride quite happily and in compliance with the vehicle code.

I got back out of the car and lifted my shoulders toward the guy in a slightly annoyed yet still family-friendly WTF? gesture. He responded with a gesture that involved his middle finger and was PG-13 at best. That’s when I noticed the dude was no taller than five-foot six.

I could take him easy.

So I went flying toward his car to have a word. I needed to get home and I was tired of this fop indulging his Little Man’s Complex on my time. Well, apparently the fop wasn’t too keen on consequences because, upon seeing six feet of blonde ferocity coming at him, the coward screeched away with a look of panic that indicated he knew he was about to have his ass kicked by a girl.

…and do you know what I saw? As his vehicle retreated? Several inches-high white lettering on the back window that read:

Lil’ Sophie’s Daycare

(916) 214-9960

Now, let’s forget for a moment that I see this vehicle every day at carpool or that these people’s kids and my kids go to school together or that we’re even neighbors. Let’s forget about the profound lack of class and intense stupidity required to treat people - particularly people in your own ‘hood - the way this guy did and focus, instead, on the fact that this moron took a car that acts as a rolling advertisement for a daycare and then behaved like a petulant brat in front of hundreds of people in a busy shopping center.

Good going Lil’ Sophie’s daddy. Did they teach you those skills in business school?

You know, I really don’t like to get all political on this blog for reasons I’ve stated before and won’t link here because I’m lazy and my left-clicking finger is sore from jamming it on the side of my head. Don’t ask.

But! As you can probably tell from that brilliant intro I’m going to do just that. Talk politics, I mean. But only a little.

Ok, so y’all know I live in California. A blue state. A place where tofu is considered an acceptable alternative to meat, divorcing couples fight over custody of pets, Dubya is blamed for everything from bad haircuts to hurricanes, and Global Warming is the official religion. So much for setting.

Alright. So there I am sitting at a stoplight when a car festooned with bumper stickers pulls up next to me. Do I even need to tell you of what political persuasion this car and it’s driver were?

I mean, it’s not like you see many conservatives driving around in thirty-five-year-old Volkswagen squarebacks with fifty bumper stickers that say stuff like “Hurray for Nuclear Bombs!” or “Eat the Poor”. Know why? Because conservatives know that slapping those stickers on a car fucks up the paint and they aren’t going to ruin their resale value just to tell the world that they (heart) a flat tax.

So anyway, I’m sitting there at the light, reading through the 1,500 word Green Party endorsement stickered to car next to me when the driver flicks her cigarette out the window.

Hello! Can Marlboro butts biodegrade on asphalt?

Apparently not, according to the yuppie driver of a car directly behind Hippie Girl, who began to lay on her horn and start screaming something about littering. Well, this got Hippie Girl to screaming back and The Yuppie responded by screaming louder which would have been all fine and good (if strange) except for the fact that the ruckus wasn’t contained to just these two cars.

This is where I come in. Hippie Girl, of the eco-friendly-black-smoke-spewing VW, thought that I was the person who had originally honked at her. So, instead of dragging The Yuppie in the car behind her out and beating her like Reginald Denny, she directed a rather loud and profanity-laced diatribe toward me.

I sat at that light and tried to ignore this chick for what seemed like an eternity. Hippie Girl and The Yuppie bitched at each other, with brief interludes during which Hippie Girl laid off The Yuppie to scream at me a little more. It was… dare I say it? A bizarre hate triangle.

Hippie-girl’s face became weirdly contorted as she grew more incensed, until she finally got out of her car at which time she turned to face the yuppie and gave her the double-fisted bird. Then she turned to me (and I swear I did not utter one damned word during this entire psychotic episode) and through my sunroof I could hear her scream,

“You fucking SUV driving cunt! You make me sick! Why don’t you go to Iraq and fight our illegal war for oil? Huh? Huh? Stupid bitch! Get a hybrid!”

At this point, for some immature reason that can probably be traced back to the fact that my parents spanked me or something, I felt obliged to respond. So I rolled down my passenger side window, smiled, and said “Guess what? I voted for Bush… TWICE!”

…and then Hippie-Girl’s head exploded.