Finally, FINALLY the roads are opening up and there is noticeable difference in the traffic. Finally we can go to a restaurant and actually hear ourselves think. We can get good treatment at an ER and not be shoveled out the door quickly in favor of the Canadians with better insurance. We can even go to a theme park and not be trampled in a stampede. Ahhh.😄 And we will have this solitude till the end of May when the tourists show up. Lately it's been so peaceful till yesterday...
Yesterday started out so nice, Tara and I did a little shopping, then visited my sister and were thoroughly entertained by her African Tortoise. Who says reptiles don't have personalities!
After a while we left to go to the Shell Station on Deltona as my car was practically empty. Jim hates this gas station and tells me to avoid it at all costs, it is small and a nightmare to maneuver in. Well I wanted to use my shell rewards card so I went anyway. BOY do I wish I had listened! First I try to pull into one spot and a convertible with a man driving bullied me out of the way. Hmm. so next I went to another one and got there the same time as a huge SUV who tried to do the same thing! This time I was NOT backing down and continued to the pump and they went around and took the one on the other side. Case closed, I "thought".
Nope her angry old dad came out with a tirade of insults to which I answered every one! Now that is not like me at all- I had snapped. 😈 Anyone who knows me knows I am pretty laid back and easy going and I hate confrontation and will usually do anything to avoid it. But just like in the "Christmas Story" in times of great duress people have been known to speak in tongues! I literally made the air blue. Maybe I was made braver by my retired Army sergeant daughter who also shot back at the old man in anger to which his son/son-in-law jumped out of the car and started a tirade of his own. Now I am 4'9 1/2 and the son looked like a linebacker! It was a literal David and Goliath story started with the vehicle version of David and Goliath which my little car had won, and for some reason pissed them off to no end.
I am assuming they are snow birds as they had thick northern accents most likely from New York. I am not anti New Yorker, I married one! Jim was born and raised in Manhattan and before you get impressed by that he is from the Washington Heights section a tough neighborhood mostly made up of minorities near Harlem. Had he been there he would be in jail now, so I am glad he was missing. Besides I had my trained Army daughter, very accustomed to shouting at men, to back me up and she tore them both a "new one" to which they gave up. So does that mean we won again? I'm not sure anyone was the true winner in such an awful exchange between human beings. When they drove away the old man said "have a nice day", I'm sure out of sarcasm and not true feelings to which Tara shot back, "have the day you deserve". I can only hope they were getting a fill up to slither back under the rock from whence they came, hundreds of miles away.
Meanwhile at a pump not far away the arrogant jerk in the convertible was pumping away casually like nothing was happening...la de da de da 🙈🙉🙊
When things like this happen Jim always says the cure for obnoxious people is to live on 4 acres in the woods. Well okay, we have 4 acres in the woods but unfortunately we do have to go to civilization at times! I wish we didn't and we try to limit it to once a week as this incident isn't isolated and have had angry confrontations before. The last one happened on my birthday in a Lowe's Parking lot when another old man nearly ran over Jim to which Jim yelled at the man and he also jumped out of the SUV with a angry tirade when he was clearly at fault and wasn't watching what he was doing-at all.
We lived in crowded as hell Clearwater for 17 years and I don't remember any incidents like this -at all. We have lived here two years have had two explosive episodes and I don't know how many countless times of being cut off in traffic and pushed or cut in line at stores. It says a lot about the people who live in this county. And sure most of the incidents are with snow birds who don't care how they act as they aren't here all year but some are from locals who are here all the time. Makes me want to be a snow bird just to get away. Hernando county is mostly rural and you would think that means nice. Nope, not always sometimes it just means low class which is unfortunate, it is a really pretty area to live in. I wish I could say that I can relish the next two months of quiet but as yesterday proved even a lot less people doesn't matter. As my mother used to say it "only takes one bad apple to spoil a bunch".
