I don't see a Buick!

If you're lucky enough to have a Trader Joe's in your town, you're lucky!  

There is really nothing like this grocery store, and people are avid about getting there when they can.  

Now, you will notice that ours (which is supposed to move a couple miles away after the first of the year) is currently in a jam-packed location, with a parking lot attached to the B.A. Towsontown Centre mall. Cars sometimes have to drive around the parking area two or three times, looking for a slot to stash the Beemer.

What you can't see in this picture is the parking garage that's all part of this megamall. You have to drive through that mess to get to the mess you see in the picture. 

To tell you the truth, TJ's prices are so low and the quality so high, I would park five blocks away in a blizzard to get their unsweetened cranberry juice, unsalted pumpkin seeds, Heritage Flakes cereal and Nova lox bits.  I'm quite the gourmet, you see.

So it was that I found myself playing bumper cars the other day, trying to get out of the parking lot there, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a white Buick, parked in a spot marked "no parking."  And for good reason does it say so: parking there meant that the entrance lane into the parking area was Blocked By A Buick, forcing people trying to get IN to alternate with people trying to get OUT.  

It's the place with red awnings

As people cheerfully fumed, honked, backed up and hollered, I found myself looking at the Buickician (technical term for a Buick owner/operator) herself as she blithely strolled back to her car. I saw the opportunity to call out a greeting to her, so I said, "Hey! Nice parking job! All right!"

And she looked me dead on and said, "I couldn't help it."

As I jockeyed my car out of the maelstrom and got back on the road home, I thought of what "I couldn't help it" meant in this case. 

• Insurgents from Paraguay forced her, at gunpoint, to park there.
• Russian hackers took remote control of her LeSabre and drove it into le parking spot.
• She ran out of gas at the exact moment she drove past the no-parking parking spot.
• She had been parked there since before they even planned to have a mall there and they built the mall around her.
• She had been parked in a good spot and a sudden ice storm, local only to Towson, made the car slip and slide out of that spot into the one designed for the trash cart.

And then the best choice hit me: she just didn't gave a hoot and a holler about anyone else.  How sad, especially at this time of year. I hope a little angel will appear to her and help her figure things out.