All of us have experienced inexplicable small incidents. If we're superstitious we may attribute them to good angels, evil spirits, gremlins, leprechauns, or voodoo. Or we may just shrug and shake our heads. The slightly unstable may see signs they are becoming more unstable, the elderly can always blame incipient Alzheimer's.
Such an incident happened to someone I don't know yesterday and only I know that I caused it to happen. It's small, it's unimportant -- unless the person to whom it happened is in the unstable category. It's a small story.
In our town we have aggressive, dueling Honda and Toyota dealerships with an awful lot of both makes of cars on the roads and in the parking lots. I now have a gray Honda Civic. Although silver and white have been big best sellers, lately shades of gray have been strong. Yesterday I went to the town library and parked in one of two or three spaces marked "Library Parking - 1/2 hour". I also went next door to the post office and then came back to my car. When I got in I thought, hmmm, it seems like the steering wheel is awfully close. It must be because I'm wearing this bulky winter jacket. So I moved the seat back a fair amount. Then put the key in and it didn't start. What!? At about that time my eye fell on the side pocket and I saw some papers that weren't mine. I looked around a little more and saw an identical Honda Civic next to me. MY car!
Quickly as possible I got out of that car and into my own and drove away before someone accused me to trying to steal that other car. About a block later I realized that the owner of the other Civic was going to get in, find the seat too far back, wonder how on earth did that happen, have absolutely not a clue and go home feeling befuddle, cursed, or maybe just shrugging it off as not important. To use Kurt Vonnegut's line from Slaughterhouse Five -- so it goes.
2 comments:
Oh June -- you gave me a great laughing spell when I read your post today. So funny. I bet you couldn't get out of that first car fast enough. I could just envision the look on the owner's face as he/she attempted to get in the car and the seat was now moved!!! Good post!
Last week when I went to the post office I did the same thing. I opened the door of another black Toyota. I didn't get all the way inside because I noticed that the dashboard was black while mine is brown. A man came running down the steps toward me saying, "That's my car." We both laughed.
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