I have a friend at the Vienna Metro station. Her name is Mercedes.
Well, I call her Mercedes, mainly because the only thing I know about her is that she drives a Mercedes. She’s there in the parking garage most mornings when I get off the train after work — lower level, right in the corner where she can see everyone who walks in.
At first, I very much despised Mercedes. She always seems to be in a massive hurry, and would follow me as I walked to my car like a lion waiting for the precise moment to pounce on its prey. I thought I was going to be run over at 4 mph.
But then I realized the situation was partly my fault. I used to park several rows away, meaning she really had no choice but to follow just behind me. Sometimes I would even take an odd route to try to get myself some distance, but really that was kind of a jerk move. The whole thing looked like this:
Now Mercedes and I are on better terms. I often waive to her and flash a smile in her direction. Sometimes she even smiles back.
Our big breakthrough came about two weeks ago. There’s another regular spot stalker, a guy I’ll call Peter. I have no idea what he drives, but he looks kind of like a Peter. I loathe him. He’s not as bad as far as driving behind me in a menacing fashion, but when I get into my car, he always parks in a way that forces me to go the long way out of the garage.
On the big day, Mercedes was idling in front of Peter about 10 cars down from where I now park in the first row. If it’s just her, she’ll wait for me to walk past and then back up until she’s just beyond my car, leaving me enough room to get out the preferred way. This time, she did that, but after she slalomed in reverse around Peter. It was an aggressive move that made me laugh. I don’t think Peter enjoyed it as much.
I guess that just goes to show how you should never write someone off, and how far a little humor can go in breaking the ice in any relationship. Or that you could just leave five minutes earlier and not stress so much about a parking space.