Road Rage: a Cautionary Tale

My husband and I are rearranging our living room and decide we need a couple of new items. I offer to go to the grandest of attractive--yet inexpensive--furniture warehouses around. The store is in Burbank, about 15 minutes from where we live, but my husband will not set foot within 500 feet of it: too many people, too many cars, too much to choose from.

“I’ve had only bad experiences in those places. I can’t go,” he whines. “Especially on a weekend.” I’ll be a man about it, I tell him, and will attempt to purchase two side tables from the big, scary store.

I give him a peck on the lips and walk out of the house, determined to prove him wrong. I climb into my car and head out to traverse the greater San Fernando Valley for a pair of drink tables, on which I envision myself placing many a cocktail.

I follow the directions from the store’s recording and I end up not in Burbank, but in Boyle Heights, 30 minutes south of the Valley. I get off the freeway, then back on again, heading north, and end up in the outermost section of Glendale. I’m getting close to Burbank but have no idea which way to go, so I stop and ask directions from several paint-splattered construction workers standing around smoking. They look relaxed, dirty, like a bunch of hairy kids who have stolen cigarettes from their parents. I notice that I’ve pulled up in front of an all-nude strip club that is being refurbished. The workers have no idea where the store is, but they point me toward Burbank. I ask for a cigarette, and one of the men, who looks disturbingly like Grizzly Adams, gives me a Marlboro Red and lights it. I thank him, then them, and drive onward.

After many frustrated cell phone calls to my husband, the store and my mother (who yelled at me for my not coming to see her for two weeks and asked me what kind of a husband would send his wife to pick up heavy furniture), I make my way into Burbank. A 15-minute drive had taken 90 minutes. I find the monstrosity of a store after much hunting through miles of oversized buildings overflowing with every useless object one could wish for. I look around for a parking space. Now, I don’t know if school’s out, or tourists like this shopping center, or no one in Burbank has a job, but there is not a single parking space anywhere, and the town is flooded with pedestrians who move like slugs through the red-bricked streets. It is very quaint, though.

I finally enter a stadium-sized parking structure only to realize it’s the wrong one. In Burbank there are east, west and north parking structures in the heart of the town, called Media City Center, and the store representative had told me to park in the west structure. I’m in the east. As I make my U-turn to get out of the lot, surrounded by weekend shoppers, I notice someone getting into his car at the entrance of this nightmarish configuration. Now those of you who drive, and those of you who have tried to park in a massive structure on a busy shopping day, know that a parking space, especially one at the entrance, is worth someone’s life. I’m in a perfect position to get it, so I decide to stay, park there and walk the extra few blocks to the store.

As I flick my turn signal in the direction of the man who is so kindly vacating his well-positioned space, I notice a guy in the passenger seat of a Ford Explorer opposite me. He has also spotted the slot, and he’s shaking his finger at me and speaking to the driver. I wrinkle my brow at him as if he were performing jumping jacks naked on the hood of my car, and wait for the driver in the space to back out. My parking nemesis gets out of the vehicle, shaking his head at me. I snicker at the paradox of his leather-jacket-and-earring look coupled with the blue mini Filofax he clutches. I move toward the just-vacated spot; he’s yelling and standing in the parking space to guard it.

“No way,” he says defensively, “no way.”

I say nothing. I’m waiting for the unwitting fellow to depart from what I have now deemed my space and think for a fleeting nonfeminist moment, “Where have all the gentlemen gone?”

I am amazed at the lengths people go for a parking space and amazed at myself for not driving away from what will inevitably become a scene. But the adrenaline bursts into my veins like a molecular speedboat, making me shake and fueling my animosity. It’s a parking space, dammit! By now his friends have found another space, not 15 feet from where our standoff has commenced. I tell him to get out of the way. He stands firm. I tell him, amid a stream of expletives, that I’m not leaving. He says he’s not either, also spewing forth logorrheic bile. I let my foot off the brake, and my monster of a truck creeps forward. I have a strong desire to kill this person. Leather boy moves a bit, as though his 135 pounds can match my half ton of metal. I let up on the brake a little more until I see a crimson look of pain mixed with anguish come over his bony face.

“You’re on my foot, bitch!”

I hesitate a moment, thinking he’s lying, but then pull my gearshift into reverse and inch backward. He makes a hard fist and pounds it onto the hood of my truck. I pull up my head to glance momentarily at what I hope is not a dent. I think how the world would be a much improved place if this person were flattened like a shrinky dink beneath my truck. He looks down at the front of my car, I think, to smash in one of my headlights. In a calmer moment, I realize he’s looking for my license plate. I don’t have one on the front of my truck, so he’s out of luck. I decide at that moment that I don’t want my car damaged on account of this rock ‘n’ roll appointment-keeper, so I drive off in search of another space in another edifice. I leave the guy in anguish.

I find another stretch of outlined concrete on the fourth level of the west lot without too much trouble. I grab my handbag and step out of the car, heading toward the stairs that will lead me to Burbank’s Media City. My eye catches sight of a frantic pedestrian four levels below, pacing--with a limp--and looking around for what I gather is me. It’s the leather-bound guy I ran over, I see. Upon further inspection, I notice his two friends that were in the car with him.

They are talking to a cop on a bicycle.

I say something unprintable and walk wearily back toward my car. I drove all the way down here, got lost twice, and now this. I hope I didn’t break his foot. Actually, I have to admit that I kind of hope I did; I only hope he wasn’t fast enough to jot my license plate number down in that trusty Filofax of his. If you stand in front of a moving vehicle, chances are you’re going to get hit. I don’t want to be detained by the cops; I don’t want to be arrested for hitting a pedestrian. I’m torn between my requisite tables and my fear of incarceration. I get a little paranoid and wonder how long it takes to put out an APB for someone. I’m sure they’ll at least look for my car in the remaining parking lots, especially if I really did hurt the guy. I camouflage my tinted windows by rolling them down, and watch the rearview

mirror for miles as I drive home. Without the side tables.

The ride home takes 15 minutes.

My husband is disturbed that I was involved in an altercation with someone who could sue me for running him over--or worse--could have had a gun and killed me, all in the name of a parking space. I know he’s right, but I just can’t help myself sometimes. I must admit to a pang of guilt that I really might have done some damage to this guy, regardless of his evident lack of intelligence, manners or style.

I tell my husband that I won’t go back for at least a week, until we decide that using his car will allow us to return, incognito (he doesn’t want me to go alone anymore). I also hang on to the hope that another fracas will arise by then that diverts the cops’ attention away from me and my truck, and onto some other hapless victim of parking lot rage. Until then, I wait apprehensively, my drink on a stack of encyclopedias, for a police officer’s knock on my door.