This is the story of a suburban mini-van driving mother of two with an errand list as long as her arm span (which is quite long, since she is over 6 ft tall).
Doting mother had just dropped off her first-born at his preschool where he boarded the big yellow bus and set out for adventures in corn mazes and pumpkin patches. Darling daughter was looking foward to the trip to Superstore with mommy, and of course the much-hyped box of smarties that was promised in exchange for good behaviour.
Along the way, minivan-driving mommy caught up to a large, diesel breathing, dark windowed truck that seemed to be having trouble reaching the speed limit. 'Hmmm", thought the mommy as she glanced at her speedometre, "50 km in a 70 km zone. Maybe I'll just go around this person." But alas, the turn-off to the marveled Superstore was (not-so-fast) approaching. A lane change is not part of this story. So mommy followed the terminally slow driver, all the while sending out a morse-code message of "do- not- get- stuck- behind- this- guy" with her brake lights. "Maybe he's texting," thought mommy, as she looked around for an officer of the law.
"There must be a reason why he is going TWENTY km below the speed limit!" Then the unthinkable happened - the black metallic turtle slowed down even more....and he was turning left. Even after the mommy had to wait for a break in traffic to make her left turn, she still had to brake for the molasses mascot that was slowly moving along in front of her.
Then, at the point where mommy was certain her dear chubby legged two-year old could waddle beside the gutless truck at a faster rate, the offending driver lazily flashed his right signal light and eased his hunk of metal into the yellow-framed parking stall. As I passed, our eyes met and he sat there grinning, all 60 plus years of himself, framed in a plaid collar.
And he was waving at me.
Not the, "hey I know you, let's hang out." Or "hey, hope you are having a good day," kind of wave.
No. This was a mocking wave. And minivan mommy nearly collapsed when her wave of anger crashed over her senses.
Thankfully, dear daughter was in the back seat. As it would totally improper for a responsible mother to leave daughter in the van while lashing out of the van in a fit of rage, minivan mommy did the only rational thing that came to her mind: she parked in the other end of the lot and sat there until she could see straight. But the image of his mocking smile and plaid shirt still had her seeing red. So she made a deal with herself. As she was clearly the bigger person, she would only resort to a single, well-placed, sting to the bone dirty look to that mocking snail dressed in plaid. Yes, that would suffice.
So smug mommy walked into the Superstore with eyes wide open, scanning the crowd for a stragglers (surely the man would walk as slow as he drove).
But after a few giggles from daughter and snickers of "I love yoooooooooou's" and tickle-wars in aisle 8, mommy's heart softened and the man in plaid was no longer attached to mommy's Superstore to-get list.
And as they were leaving, just as mommy had promised, daughter got smarties for good behaviour. And mommy got some too.
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