Patience is not a stranger to my day.  I have to put on the longsuffering headset many times in my profession.  Whether it is crazy circumstances or unbelievable human frailties, I don patience daily.

Some things in life can’t be changed.  So we wait.  It is futile to get exasperated; it will accomplish very little.

I was thrust into the mode of being challenged by patience today.  Yvonne needed to make a stop at a local variety store this afternoon.  My initial groan was a dead-give-away.

But, I repented and gladly jumped into our vehicle and made the journey to the jam-packed parking lot of the local variety store.  I knew of a few overflow spots and tried to get there.  Cars blocked my path several times.

One driver stopped in the middle of the lane after turning part way into the aisle.  “Are you kidding me?  She’s holding up traffic in three directions!”

That wasn’t the half of it.  The parking spot that she was waiting to claim had two people still loading their purchases into the car.  They had at least a dozen bags left in their shopping cart. 

I was pinned. The four cars behind me couldn’t back up.  Going around her was not an option either since her wide turn was blocking the aisle for opposing traffic. 

She was clearly not going to move.  Every parking space in the visible area was taken, and she was not going to be denied this space.  Several people were honking at her but she would not budge from her perch of determination.

Traffic finely lightened up.  I drove around the roadblock.  Other vehicles followed suit but with their hands on their horns.

Several times we were stuck looking for that rare parking place.  People hovered over potential spots by following shoppers who were leaving the store.  Once they identified the shopper’s vehicle they would territorially mark their place as the next owner of that twenty-foot long piece of asphalt.

Courtesy is gone.  Seething impatience is personified behind each steering wheel.  Human beings are morphed into tenacious space hunters.

I dropped Yvonne off to shop at the front entrance.  Slowly I moved to a parking area next to a fast food eatery, off the real estate of the variety store.  Once she was done with her shopping I saw her text message, we rendezvoused as deftly as a pony express exchange.  Merry Christmas!

photo credit: google image