Out of My Way, Assassin!

Jason and I had an up-close-and-personal encounter with stupidity last night (and, no, it wasn't our own stupidity this time). Let me set the scene:

We live on a narrow street. The street is not a one-way, but a dead end, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. To compensate for the lack of parking for the surrounding apartments (and the insistence by non-tenants that they have a right to the few actual parking spaces), people park on the street. So, using simple math, what was once a narrow two-lane street becomes a one-lane street. You also need to know that our house is on the corner of this narrow street and a very busy street.

Now, here's the situation: When we were coming home from dinner last night, we pulled into our narrow street from the very busy street, only to be met with a Ford Explorer coming out of the (now one-lane) street. Please keep in mind that all the parked cars were parked on her side of the street. Our car barely out of the traffic from Busy Street, we sat there waiting for her to back straight up and allow us to pass. What does she do? She SITS THERE. And not just sits--she moves her car FORWARD, to where it is almost touching ours! Incredulous, we sat there for several more minutes. By this time there was another car waiting to turn onto Narrow Street from Busy Street, with the driver twiddling his thumbs. She kept sitting, inches from our car! So, being the gracious souls we are, Jason and I reversed into Busy Street and the traffic, so that Queenie could exit the dead end. (Somehow I don't think I've fully captured the shock and disbelief any reader should currently be experiencing, but I'm doing my best.)

When Queenie pulled into Busy Street from Narrow Street, as the rest of the world stopped in its tracks, the car waiting to pull onto Narrow Street gestured at her in frustration. After we parked our car, two neighbors we've never met came over to discuss what an idiot that girl was and threw in a few descriptive profanities as well. (Being defensive and highly annoyed, I thought they came over to tell us we should have backed up and let her pass, so I was not very nice... But, as I said, this post is not about my stupidity, and I digress.) The point is, everyone witnessing the situation understood the simple principle: car exiting quiet dead end should reverse and allow car from Busy Street to enter the dead end, especially when the parked cars are on her side of the street. But apparently the driver of said Explorer doesn't know what the "R" on her gearshift stands for.

Last night I may have been paralyzed with disbelief, but a word of warning to those exiting and entering Narrow Street today: I am fully prepared for a future standoff and will simply not back into oncoming traffic so that you can exit. So there!