A few days ago, Mrs. Pincus had to make a drop-off at a local UPS Store, something she has done countless times as a part of her eBay business. (I said 'NO!' She will not sell your stuff for you! Please stop asking!)
The closest UPS Store to our suburban Philadelphia home is just a short drive away, but it is situated as the end store in a strangely-configured strip center. After delivering the bulk of her thrice-weekly shipments to the post office, my wife will drive to the UPS Store and enter the parking lot through the more convenient back lot entrance. You see, the front parking lot — the one accessible from busy Old York Road — employs a one-way cattle chute, allowing cars to only enter from the busy four-lane highway. The narrow entrance is flanked by high cement retaining curbs and sort-of lazily snakes into the parking lot to insure that drivers maintain a single-digit speed limit. There is a small parking up in the front and a larger one behind the building. Once patrons are ready to leave the lot, the only exit is in the back. It is still a bit tricky, as all exiting vehicles must turn left (onto Wyncote Road) and towards Old York Road.
Here's a map so you can follow along....
The exit to the street labeled "Wyncote Road" is sometimes blocked by a trailer truck (as the red circle indicates) unloading new automobiles for the car dealership across the street. So, navigating your way out of a routine stop at the UPS Store can become an ordeal. The day that Mrs. Pincus was there most recently was an ordeal, all right... but not for logistical reasons.
As she was coming up Wyncote Road, she spotted a car attempting to exit via the cattle chute roadway at the front of the building. Sometimes, drivers try to buck the rules and sneak out this way, if there are no other cars around. It's wrong, but people do the wrong thing all the time. In this case, however, another car was coming in to the parking lot, correctly using the cattle chute. Since the road was constructed to purposely allow just one car to use it, a problem was occurring. Mrs. Pincus pulled into the parking lot at the rear, grabbed her shipment from the cargo area of her car and approached the building. She could hear some horns honking and the sound of arguing, though no actual words were discernible.
In these current days of social distancing, Mrs. P took her place in a queue line that had formed outside the rear door of the UPS Store. Soon, she was joined by a man who fell into formation six feet behind her. The man began to speak out loud, to no one in particular. He was complaining about the drivers in the small parking lot. Soon, it was revealed that he was one of the two drivers involved in the standoff in the cattle chute at the front of the building. ("Standoff in the Cattle Chute" sounds like the title of a 1940s Western from the John Ford canon.) The man exhibited his frustration at the driver going the wrong way and his difficulty in getting the fellow to understand he was going the wrong way. My wife nodded her head in approval, adding something like "Yeah, I know..."
Suddenly, the man ended his angry rant with "Y'know, Black Lives Matter and all that crap..." before trailing off.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
WHAT?!?
My wife blinked and, if her mouth wasn't covered by a cotton mask stretched between two elastic bands secured around her ears, her jaw probably would have fallen to the ground.
"What does someone's poor driving habits have to do with the 'Black Lives Matter' movement?," she asked the man.
He readily answered. "Well, y'know, they all want their rights now and they all do what ever they want. The whole 'civil rights' thing has been blown way out of proportion. Once they got their rights in the 60s, things have been going downhill. And now this whole 'Black Lives Matter' thing.... awful. Just terrible."
Mrs. Pincus was speechless. This is 2020. In the United States of America. She finally said, "I didn't see if the other driver was a man of color, but it doesn't matter."
The man, who was Caucasian, replied, "Well, he was and they think they can do whatever they want now." This guy wasn't letting up.
Mrs. P announced, "This conversation is over." It was her turn to move up in line. She dropped off her package and headed to her car. The man called out to her, "Stay safe!"
I have no conclusion to this story, except that our society still has a long way to go. Sadly, it's a very long way.
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