There are levels to entitlement. And then there’s “I’m going to stand in a parking spot and act as a human cone” entitlement, which is a special, high-octane flavor of audacity. But this story… this story has a plot twist that is so beautiful, so chef’s kiss perfect, that it deserves to be in a museum.
Our story comes from a 22-year-old woman who lives on a side street next to a private high school. This means that on game days, her neighborhood turns into the parking Olympics. She, like any normal person who lives there, has a spot she usually parks in: right in front of her own house.
She was coming home from a coffee run and saw the street was “packed.” She was worried her spot would be gone. But it wasn’t! It wasn’t taken by a car, anyway. It was “taken” by a middle-aged woman, standing in the spot with her “arms outstretched.”
I am already full-body cringing. The “human parking cone” is the final boss of “I’m the main character” syndrome.
The narrator, just trying to go home, puts on her blinker and rolls down her window. The woman immediately asks, “parking for the lacrosse game?” Before our hero can even say “no, I literally live here,” the woman cuts her off: “I’m saving this spot for my sister… I told her I’d save it.”
But this is where it goes from “annoying” to “absolute comedy gold.” The woman, trying to be all intimidating and official, gives her a smile and says the one, fatal line. “I know the family that lives here, it’s my best friend’s family.” And then she pointed to the narrator’s house.
I am… deceased. The confidence. The unearned, unvetted, completely fabricated confidence. She just tried to pull the “I know the owner” card on the actual fcking owner*.
Our narrator’s smile, as you can imagine, “dropped.” And she delivered the most beautiful, simple, soul-crushing line in the history of parking disputes: “I live here, this is where I usually park.”
Now, a normal person at this point would simply evaporate. They would turn into a fine mist of pure, unadulterated shame and float away.
But not this woman. Oh no. This woman argued with her. She argued with the homeowner, telling her she was “saving the spot” and that our hero should “park somewhere else.” Somewhere else! On a street that was completely full! She told the person who lives there to go park on the next street over!
The narrator, now justifiably “angry,” didn’t get into a screaming match. She just… held her ground. She did what any of us wish we had the guts to do. She told the woman, “Please move, I’m parking here and I don’t want to hit you.” This is the politest, most savage “get the f*ck out of my way” I have ever heard.
The woman, realizing she was about to be parallel parked into, lost her mind. She crossed her arms and “started cussing” her out. And as the narrator, a true queen, just put her car in drive and started parking, the woman “ran off,” screaming, “real classy ahole!”
So, is she the ahole? For… checks notes… parking her car… in front of her own house? No. You are not the ahole. You are a legend. This woman didn’t just play a stupid game; she played the stupidest game imaginable and won the grand prize: public humiliation.