itsawonderfilledlife

I went to Costco on a Sunday afternoon! I thought that going just an hour before closing would mean it wouldn’t be so chaotic … I was wrong.

It took forever to find an empty parking spot. Then I gave up and started watching for people who were walking out of the store, towards their vehicles. Finally I saw someone with just a few items in their cart, and stalked them back to their vehicle (pause, now just visualize this happening …

one frazzled lady, fleeing the box store, with not a cent in her bank account and her sanity barely intact. Another lady (that’s me) desperate to find a place to park her vehicle, driving slowly behind shopper lady …

I awaited my prey parking spot to become available (seriously, this lady took more time loading her car than I did filling my cart once I got into the store!), with my turn signal alerting everyone in that row that THAT SPOT WAS MINE … BACK OFF. Cars behind me started to form a line out of the row, and around the corner (I bet I was a Sunday blessing to those happy not-yet-shoppers).

Finally the lady lowered her trunk lid, and got herself into the driver’s seat.

I am pretty convinced that she returned texts, emails and updated her Twitter and Instagram accounts at this point. She may have touched up her make-up as well, it took her so long to put it into reverse.

Then, the moment I was anxiously awaiting, her reverse lights were on! She  s l o w l y  backed out toward my vehicle, and began to move forward. As she did another car was coming … this made me temporarily anxious that they might do a Fried Green Tomatoes  move and snag my spot. They didn’t. But they kept coming and ended up stopped … blocking my preordained parking spot.

The driver of the car that was blocking me looked not at all happy about being halted from leaving the Costco parking lot. They made hand gestures, were verbally and facially animated and honked their horn. What they did not know, was that their being stopped was because they stopped me from parking, which stopped the cars (plural) behind me from moving forward, which also stopped the cars from being able to exit the row, thus blocking them in.

As I eventually got parked and was walking into the store, I realized something … they were the cause of their own problem and they were completely unaware.

Then I found myself wondering, how often is that the case in my life? That the rut, struggle or frustration I am currently experiencing is caused by my own choices, actions or movements … without looking at how I might be contributing to the problem?