The Grampy Patrol (In Color!)

So I go to Wal-Mart the other day.

Sure, I know I'm depriving my community of needed revenue by shopping at the corporate giant, but dammit I needed Russell Stover sugar free low-carb peanut butter cups and all the locally owned businesses charge $8,000 for them if they have them at all. I'm only human!

(Oh, and a word of advice to you low-carbers out there.  Allow me to assure you that it is a VERY bad idea indeed to eat the suggested serving size of 5 cups of the Reese's brand of sugar-free mini-peanut butter cups. That is, unless you've got a hankering to spend the rest of your evening running carefully to and from the toilet to do your best impression of the Serial Shitter. Not so much trouble in that department with my boy Russ, so that's my brand.)

As I was maneuvering my Malibu through Wally World's parking lot, I got behind an older gentleman driving a big Pontiac who was slowly turning into one of the parking aisles near the store's southern entrance. I immediately recognized him as a member of that international fraternal brotherhood and cabalistic society known as the Grampy Patrol—a loose-knit organization of elderly men who drive around in big vehicles, preferably pickup trucks, at irritatingly slow speeds, take twenty minutes to make a turn and who always wear hats while doing so. They are among my many arch-nemeses and will remain so until I'm old enough to join them and subvert them from within.

I pulled into the same aisle and then had to slow down to maintain the car-length of distance between my car and his, since he refused to go any faster. It was a good thing that distance was there, though, because the man suddenly came to a halt. Much to my surprise and annoyance, he then threw his car into reverse and started backing up toward me. Turned out, the man had driven right past the empty handicapped parking space near the door and had decided he wanted it after all. However, my car was at that moment perpendicular to that space, blocking the way. The man didn't seem to have noticed this, though, as he had not bothered to even look in his rear view mirror to check if anyone was behind him before throwing it into reverse. He wasn't exactly flying back, though, so I kept waiting for him to catch a glimpse of me and stop. He didn't, because he was not only NOT using his mirror but he wasn't even turning his head to look behind him at all as he backed up. Instead, he was watching the parked cars to his right to gauge his progress.

Seeing that he was going to hit me, I threw my own car into reverse. Fortunately, I DID check my mirror and saw there were several people in the pedestrian walkway directly behind my car. I couldn't back up at all without backing over them. I was trapped!

*HONK*HONK*HONK*, I honked. This seemed to get the man’s attention and he slowed to a halt. For good measure, I gave him several longer, angrier honks. Only then did his head finally swivel around and actually look at me. Still the man remained in reverse. He was actually waiting for me to get out of his way.

FINE!

When the crosswalk was clear, I backed up and took the next aisle down where I found a parking space and quickly got out of my car to go find this guy and vent my fury.

How could someone have such a colossal failure to exercise common sense in driving? The guy was old enough to have been driving for several decades, so he should know better! Anyone could have been behind him, closer than I was. Hell, a pedestrian could have been behind him and he hadn't bothered to look at all!

I soon spotted him. He had exited his car and was slowly making his way across the pedestrian crosswalk; had his Grampy Patrol hat on and everything. I started in his direction and noticed that he was already looking nervously back over his shoulder in my direction. (Oh, sure, NOW he looks over his shoulder?! ) I'm sure I had a fiery expression of rage on my face, but as I watched this frail little old man hobble along toward the door of Wally World, I was internally starting to soften.

What good could really come from me yelling at this guy for nearly testing my front bumper? Probably none. No one had been hurt, he had hopefully learned the lesson that it was a mistake to blindly throw his car into reverse and I'd already gotten to righteously honk at him, which is always fun. Embarrassing the man in front of half of Wal-Mart was probably not a good idea and would definitely not be respecting my elders.  By the time I'd reached the crosswalk myself, I'd decided I wouldn't yell at him at all.

"Pssst! Hey, pssst!" I heard from my left. It was an equally old man seated on the bench outside of Wally-World's entrance. He was jerking his head at me in an effort to beckon me over. He wasn't wearing a Grampy Patrol hat, so I figured it was safe.

"Yeah?" I said, coming closer. The man nodded in the direction of the thoughtless older man, who was only then reaching the doors of Wally World.

"That's him," the man on the bench said, still nodding in the first one’s direction. I nearly burst out laughing. Dude on the bench was trying to start a fight. Oh, sure, he was wrapping it up in civic-duty, trying to make it seem like he was just helping me find the man who nearly backed into me, but deep down this guy was trying to cause trouble.  Then, as though he had judged me too dim to "get" what he meant, the man on the bench lifted a hand and pointed his finger at the first man, now well within Wally World’s breezeway, and said, "That's him. That's the guy."

"Yeah. I know," I said.

I didn't bother hunting down the Grampy Patrol driver, though we did see one another a couple of more times while I was shopping. Whenever he saw me, he'd look nervous again and maybe shuffle his shopping cart a little faster down the aisle.

Great, I thought, now I'm inadvertently bullying the elderly.