Monday morning

Yep, it's Monday morning and Spring Break is officially over. Though it wasn't my best break ever, I still didn't want to come back to work. Of course as I was enjoying feeling sorry for myself at the end of the week, I got smacked back to reality by a post by my old friend The Vol Abroad. She said a fellow former Lawrence County, TN blogger has been diagnosed with cancer. It seems that it may not be "too bad", but that's enough to give me some perspective. So today I'm back to ranting about general things that bug me -- and I've got a good one!

So what is it that has raised my ire? People who think the ordinary rules of civil society do not apply to them! I'm not talking about hardened criminals -- bank robbers, rapists, etc. -- no, I'm talking about the folks who feel they can flout the mostly unwritten covenants that make life run smoothly. You've all seen them. The one that traditionally holds the top spot on my most hated list is the person who just can't be bothered to return his shopping cart to the "rack". No, he leaves his cart out in the middle of a parking place, thereby creating the potential for damage to some other car and taking up a parking space.

So, anyway, this past week I've identified another class of offender that needs to be smote sorely: the "I'll park wherever I want, in the most convenient place possible" driver. I saw two incidences of this the other day. First was the woman at Wendy's. She felt stopping just in front of the drive thru window while her son went inside to get their food was perfectly okay. Never mind the inconvenience she caused for legitimate drive thru customers, she didn't want Junior to have to walk more than 10 feet.

Next, was the "I can park in the fire lane because I just can't be troubled to walk the 20 or 30 feet from a parking space" woman at the Dollar General. She just pulled her minivan right up in the fire lane, smack dab in front of the doors of course, and went in to do her shopping. Gosh, that was a convenient parking spot, I wonder why no one else was using it? BECAUSE IT'S NOT A PARKING SPOT!

The arrogance exhibited by these folks astounds me. Of course I did nothing about it. I was all Walter Mitty in my head, but in reality I just went back to my car and fumed. Anyway, that's what's bugging me today.

Oh, funny story from Saturday night. For some reason I volunteered to help one of the coffee shop couples do some work at a house they're remodeling. Jim and I built a block wall and moved a bunch of fill dirt. It was pretty lousy work, but I wasn't doing anything else. Anyway, to pay me back, they invited me to go to dinner Saturday night with a group of their friends. I thought I knew a bunch of eclectic people, but they may have me beat. My favorite was the organic farmer who moved here from CA, but there was a worrisome moment at the beginning of the evening.

I, of course, was there sans date and they kept talking about how we were waiting for one more person before we could leave. Well when the "one more" showed up, I got a tad nervous. He turned out to be R, a very openly homosexual interior designer from Huntsville. Now I have no issues with homosexuality, but for a moment I wondered if this wasn't going to be the most ill-conceived "setup" of St. Caffeine's life! I know I've joked with this couple about my "unmanly image" as a single man with cats, but did they not understand I was joking?

In reality, though, it was all innocent. R and I had both been invited to dinner, but that was it. He turned out to be a nice guy with some funny stories (and y'all know how I appreciate a good story). Still, I had a moment of panic when he walked in.

Okay, time to go educate.