I made a quick run after dinner, to the very same grocery store that I got a senior citizen discount at yesterday, because I needed even more shit for school that I should have just bought yesterday. I pulled into a parking spot and put the car in park, and at that precise moment the car next to me and the car facing them on the other side of the aisle both started pulling out of their spots at the same time.

My sense of proprioception went absolutely batshit, and I was completely convinced my car was moving. Have you ever slammed on the brakes on a car while it’s in park? I don’t recommend it, especially if the car already wasn’t moving, because it won’t help. I had a couple of seconds of full-on panic, trying to figure out why my car was moving when I wasn’t moving it, before it clicked what was going on.

I went inside and immediately walked past a former student, who did not acknowledge me– possibly because I had her in class fifteen or sixteen years ago and she didn’t recognize me, which is reasonable. I remember liking the kid well enough, and the last I heard about her she was doing fine, but man did she look like hammered shit today. Like, possibly unhoused and with the flu. Really, really rough.

I collected my various purchases, noting with some irritation that some of them were literally twice the cost that they would have been had I gone to Target, but fuck it, I was already there. I bought everything and went back out to my car, checked my mirrors and my back-up camera and started backing out of my spot, like a normal, responsible driver, and just before I got to the point where I’d take the car out of reverse the car behind me (so on the other side of the lane) starts pulling out of their spot, clearly not looking to see if the way was clear. I slammed on the horn and came within an inch or two of getting hit, but they stopped in time and pulled back into their parking spot so I could leave.

As I was driving away, I saw a large man in a Punisher shirt and bright red shorts standing on the side of the entrance to the parking lot. A moment later I realized that this man, at 6:30 PM on a Thursday night, in broad daylight and in public, was energetically masturbating.

I once watched from my fourth-floor apartment window in Chicago as a woman squatted in the entrance to a business across the street and took a piss on the sidewalk, but I’m almost certain I’ve never seen somebody just randomly jerking off on the side of the road at passing cars before.

On the other hand, hey, it got me a blog post.