A Trio of Tried Patience: 3) Val Does Not Play Chicken Well with Others

Did you hear that noise last Wednesday? It was The Universe chanting BWAH HA HA! Messing with Val in her week of need, getting her all riled up before Hick's homecoming from back surgery.

My plans to gas up T-Hoe at the Sis-Town Casey's foiled, I pulled up to the pump at the School-Turn Casey's on my way home from errands. I went in to pre-pay. I'm not one to use a card to buy gas. There was a problem last summer with objects being attached to the pump scanners that stole money from people's accounts. Besides, I'm just an old-fashioned kind of Val, who likes to pay with actual money.

Anyhoo... my transaction at the counter concluded without incident. I started out the door. It's a double door. Two glass doors. Push to get out, pull to get in. You can see easily through the glass. Being an obeyer of society's unwritten rules, I kept right. Pushed on the door to start out. A dude was walking across the lot, starting in. Of course I assumed him to also be an obeyer of society's unwritten rules. I know you are shocked to hear that he was not!

Dude could clearly see me coming out the door. He grabbed the handle as I had it partially open. Oh, no. Not to hold it and allow elderly ample-rumpused bad-kneed Val to exit. But to force himself inside, like an ill-mannered not-salmon, walking upstream in a one-way-only land-current.

Dude stood there. STOOD. In Val's way. I could not get out! What was I supposed to do, let go of the door and walk around him? I was there first! Dude could have let go of the door and stepped aside for a moment to allow my exit. Stepped, in fact, over in front of the societal-implied entrance door. Which was on his right. But no. He just stood, a healthy though perhaps dim young man, in the way of an old lady.

I indeed had to walk around that guy to get out of the store. What in the actual Not-Heaven? 

When I started pumping T-Hoe's gas, giving me time to survey the front of the store, I understood more of Dude's problem:

He was a chronic ne'er-do-well! He had taken up all the parking spaces save one, on the left side of the store. I'm sure that was just an oversight. Leaving a space open...

There is room on this Casey's parking lot to park along the side, and not take up parking meant for four vehicles. He almost blocked the drive-thru with the bumper of his truck! Of course, a Dude who won't move one step to get out of the way of an old lady is not going to walk extra steps to get inside the store.