bad behavior

sunday afternoon i went from my home to my home on the road, or one of my homes on the road: a lovely campsite in the green mountain national forest. i stopped for a haircut in west lebanon, NH, which was handy, because it was just then that the cable to my GPS receiver failed catastrophically and i needed a new one before setting out and i was just hinking "where can i find a radio shack? there must be one near here"

...and there it was. right in front of me. so i got that straightened out and got back on the interstate and it was a pleasant enough trip down to brattleboro, where i like to stop and get my dinner at west brattleboro pizza...

no, you're not getting a link from me even though i like their pizza a lot and it's pretty cheap as decent pizzas go. the crust is flavorful but not because they load it with fat the way the do a national chain i could mention. it just tastes good and i like the eggplant and sausage pie. the sausage they use (while crumbled and not sliced) is nice and spicy and the eggplant is just about perfect.

you're still not getting a link from me because apparently they have not heard that it's not at all hard to get a free website, so all they have is a blasted facebook page and as we all know, facebook is evil second only to walmart.

anyway, i pull in to get my pizza and there's this guy who has parked right down the middle of two parking places. parking places, i might add, that are at somewhat of a premium to customers and to the kids who deliver the pizzas.

turns out he's sitting in his car as i pull in, so i give him a bad look. he looks at me as if to say "what are YOU lookin' at? do you SEE this car? i NEED two parking places. i am just that important."

so i get out and go in to the pizza place and i say to the kid at the counter "what's up with the guy who needs two parking places? either he doesn't know how to treat people or he doesn't know how to drive."

and the kid says "the license plate explains it all.", which i think is mostly an unfair categorization of a whole state of people. i mean, i'm sure there are plenty of people who live in connecticut who only use one parking place at a time, even if there are a lot to spare.

so while i'm waiting for my pizza, i go into the 7-11 to buy a few things and the girl at the counter is kind of irritated by a pile of stuff on the counter that someone just left there and she has no idea what to do with it.

"those are mine." announces mr. i-need-two-parking-spaces-for-my-precious-car. "i had to go outside to take a call."

he says this as if to suggest that everything about him is much more important than everybody else. i admit that my percetion of him may already be biased, since i've see how he parked.

and then i was sitting in the  pizza place finishing up my waiting and i watched the guy pull out of his two parking places as if he had squeezed very tightly into half a space and needed a LOT more room in which to maneuver, and pulled into traffic not very skillfully, but with much squealing of tires.

"the verdict's in." i tell the kid at the counter. "he doesn't know how to treat people OR how to drive." and we laugh.


and then there was a biological thing and i had to come home early and i was on the interstate where there was this incredibly erratic driver in the passing lane, weaving back and forth over both lines, so when she got in front of me i just set my camera on the dash and recorded. good news/ bad news: once back in my lane she was slightly less erratic, but still not driving very well.

on the phone, of course.