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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Crunch!

Or, "Expedition vs. Escalade"

Let's first talk about the elephant in the room. I haven't updated in 2 months. Yikes! Where does the time go? It's either flying by, or there's nothing interesting happening with me. The most accurate explanation is probably both.

Now on to the story...

I had a couple of Etsy sales to ship out this morning, and one was an international purchase so I had to take it to the post office because of the customs forms. Not a big deal. I live in a suburb, but it's a large one: about 30 square miles, 3 or 4 ZIP codes, but only 1 post office. So the office can get busy at times, but I've figured out when to avoid it (Mondays all day, lunch hours, and 4:30-6:00 pm). It can still get a little hairy there, especially the parking lot.

The lot is a simple drive-through layout: 1 aisle with angle parking on both sides. The drop boxes are on the left, immediately across from the main entrance to the building. Because there's usually a fair amount of traffic, it's important to be aware of that traffic when backing out of the parking spaces. That's complicated by the fact that the driving area of the aisle is 2 cars wide, so that people can get around folks who are pulled up to the drop boxes.

This morning, several spots in the lot were occupied by a landscaping truck and trailer, which was pulled across several spots. There were still some open spots for the several people, including me, pulling into the lot. I saw a red Escalade start backing out of a spot - right into the path of traffic. The Expedition immediately in front of me stopped. The Escalade didn't. Crunch! Now, the driver of the Expedition should have given a little toot on her horn when she had to stop, just to make the Escalade driver aware of the other traffic. But clearly, this was a case of someone in their own little world pulling out without even considering that there were other cars on the move in the parking lot.

Sadly, both drivers were women. A fact that didn't escape the notice of the several men exiting the building as I walked up.

2 comments:

Rae Bates said...

Parking lots are clearly dangerous places. Glad no one was hurt.

BTW, you can do international postage online. They have the customs forms at USPS.com.

chefann said...

I've used those, but one still needs to take it in to the counter and have the employees stamp them. Either way, I had to go to the PO.