I live in a large city and don’t own a car.<\/p>\n
I never have.<\/p>\n
Between the subway, buses, rideshares, and walking, I’ve never really needed one.<\/p>\n
At the time this happened, I didn’t even have a driver’s license.<\/p>\n
One afternoon, I left a grocery store carrying two bags of groceries.<\/p>\n
One bag was in my hand, and a few smaller items were tucked into a backpack.<\/p>\n
I was halfway across the parking lot when a woman suddenly stepped directly into my path.<\/p>\n
“Excuse me!” she shouted.<\/p>\n
I stopped, thinking maybe I had dropped something.<\/p>\n
Instead, she pointed across the parking lot.<\/p>\n
“You need to move your truck right now!”<\/p>\n
I stared at her.<\/p>\n
“My what?”<\/p>\n
“Your truck!”<\/p>\n
She jabbed a finger toward a large white pickup parked next to a small orange hatchback.<\/p>\n
The vehicles were parked close together, though both were technically within their spaces.<\/p>\n
The hatchback driver would definitely have to squeeze to get inside.<\/p>\n
Still, that had nothing to do with me.<\/p>\n
“I think you’ve got the wrong person,” I said.<\/p>\n
“No, I don’t.”<\/p>\n
“Actually, you do.”<\/p>\n
She folded her arms.<\/p>\n
“You parked that giant thing way too close to my car.”<\/p>\n
I looked at the truck.<\/p>\n
Then at her.<\/p>\n
Then back at the truck.<\/p>\n
“I don’t own a truck.”<\/p>\n
“Sure you don’t.”<\/p>\n
“I don’t.”<\/p>\n
“Stop lying.”<\/p>\n
At this point, I genuinely thought she had mistaken me for someone else.<\/p>\n
Maybe she’d seen another guy nearby.<\/p>\n
Maybe she was confused.<\/p>\n
But instead of reconsidering, she became even more certain.<\/p>\n
“You truck people are all the same,” she snapped.<\/p>\n
“I walked all the way across this lot to find you.”<\/p>\n
“You found the wrong person.”<\/p>\n
“No, I didn’t.”<\/p>\n
I held up my grocery bags.<\/p>\n
“I’m literally walking home.”<\/p>\n
She rolled her eyes.<\/p>\n
“That doesn’t prove anything.”<\/p>\n
Several shoppers had started watching.<\/p>\n
One older man paused with his shopping cart and quietly enjoyed the show.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the woman continued her lecture.<\/p>\n
She called me inconsiderate.<\/p>\n
Selfish.<\/p>\n
Entitled.<\/p>\n
Apparently I was personally responsible for every oversized vehicle in the city.<\/p>\n
Finally, I pointed toward the truck.<\/p>\n
“What makes you think it’s mine?”<\/p>\n
She looked triumphant.<\/p>\n
“Aha!”<\/p>\n
“As if that’s evidence.”<\/p>\n
“You were walking near it.”<\/p>\n
I blinked.<\/p>\n
“I was walking near half the parking lot.”<\/p>\n
“Exactly.”<\/p>\n
That was the moment I realized logic wasn’t going to help.<\/p>\n
Then an idea occurred to me.<\/p>\n
“Okay,” I said.<\/p>\n
“If it’s my truck, what color is it?”<\/p>\n
She frowned.<\/p>\n
“What?”<\/p>\n
“What color is my truck?”<\/p>\n
“The white one.”<\/p>\n
“Good.”<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
“Then unlock it.”<\/p>\n
“What?”<\/p>\n
“You seem very confident it’s mine.”<\/p>\n
She stared.<\/p>\n
I continued.<\/p>\n
“Go ahead. Tell me to unlock it.”<\/p>\n
The crowd around us grew slightly larger.<\/p>\n
A few people were trying not to laugh.<\/p>\n
The woman hesitated.<\/p>\n
Then doubled down.<\/p>\n
“Stop being difficult and move it.”<\/p>\n
“I can’t.”<\/p>\n
“Why not?”<\/p>\n
“Because I don’t have the keys.”<\/p>\n
“You left them inside.”<\/p>\n
“No.”<\/p>\n
“Then where are they?”<\/p>\n
“I’ve never had them.”<\/p>\n
The woman looked increasingly frustrated.<\/p>\n
Then, right on cue, a large man carrying several bags exited the store.<\/p>\n
He headed directly toward the truck.<\/p>\n
Without saying a word, he pressed a button on his key fob.<\/p>\n
The truck lights flashed.<\/p>\n
Everyone turned.<\/p>\n
Including the woman.<\/p>\n
The man looked confused.<\/p>\n
“Everything okay?”<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
“Apparently that’s my truck.”<\/p>\n
The man stared.<\/p>\n
Then laughed.<\/p>\n
“Nope. Pretty sure it’s mine.”<\/p>\n
The entire crowd burst out laughing.<\/p>\n
The woman’s face immediately turned bright red.<\/p>\n
She pointed at me.<\/p>\n
“But he was standing here!”<\/p>\n
The truck owner shrugged.<\/p>\n
“So were twenty other people.”<\/p>\n
For a few seconds nobody spoke.<\/p>\n
Then the owner opened his truck door and climbed inside.<\/p>\n
Before leaving, he rolled down the window.<\/p>\n
“Good luck figuring out who owns the next one.”<\/p>\n
More laughter.<\/p>\n
The woman looked like she wanted to disappear.<\/p>\n
At that point, a store employee who had been watching from the entrance walked over.<\/p>\n
“Ma’am,” he said politely, “is there a problem?”<\/p>\n
She mumbled something about a misunderstanding.<\/p>\n
Then hurried toward her hatchback.<\/p>\n
Ironically, with the truck gone, she now had plenty of room to get in.<\/p>\n
The crowd slowly dispersed.<\/p>\n
I picked up my grocery bags and continued walking home.<\/p>\n
As I left the parking lot, the older man with the shopping cart caught up to me.<\/p>\n
“You handled that better than I would have.”<\/p>\n
I laughed.<\/p>\n
“Honestly, I was waiting to find out what other vehicles I apparently owned.”<\/p>\n
He grinned.<\/p>\n
“Maybe next time it’ll be a yacht.”<\/p>\n
And to this day, that’s still one of the strangest arguments I’ve ever had.<\/p>\n
Not because someone thought I parked badly.<\/p>\n
But because they were absolutely convinced I owned a truck while I was literally carrying groceries home on foot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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