It was 11:00 AM and I decided to take a quick walk around the neighborhood. Just to clear the cobwebs from my mind and loosen me up a bit.

As I walked down Seventh Street and passed Montrose Street, I saw that church services from Saint Mary Magdalen de Pazzi Roman Catholic Church had just let out. There was a group standing outside in front of the church chatting.

There was an older man walking with the aid of a cane, coming from the direction of the church and turning onto Seventh just ahead of me. He was dressed in a white jacket and shorts and was making good time, cane or no cane.

When he got about to the entrance to the library, he stopped and unlocked his car, and he started to get into it as I walked past him.

Then I heard a woman’s voice behind me say, “Did you park like that?” 

I turned around. The woman was very roughly the same age as the man; I judged them both to be north of 60, but more than that I would be hard pressed to say. 

The man admitted that he had, indeed, parked like that.  He could hardly say otherwise, it seemed to me.

I took a closer look and saw that he had fit his car into a very tight space. Presumably the woman’s car had been there first.

As their dialog developed, I gathered that she had been sitting in her car because she couldn’t get out as she was squeezed in too tightly from both the front and the back.

“Where did you learn to park like that?” she screamed. “Why couldn’t you go park on Christian Street?” 

The man was trying to be conciliatory but to no avail.

A little bit more give and take and it turned out that both of them had been in the church service. So she couldn’t have been sitting in her car waiting for too long. Unless she ducked out of the service early. Boring sermon perhaps?

Meanwhile, I was transfixed. I had stopped and was staring. 

It was about this time that both of them turned and saw that I was staring at them. They didn’t seem to mind; I guess they wanted an audience. Of one.

Then she accused the man of hitting her car 19 times.

How did she know that? Did she have 19 dents or scratches? I really wanted to get closer so I could look. Perhaps they needed a referee.

I couldn’t help thinking that if both of them had come from the church service, why hadn’t the spirit of Jesus entered into them? 

Anyway, I decided they’d have to settle their dispute on their own, so I went on my way.

I made a point of circling around the block and a few minutes later I walked across Montrose and emerged once again on Seventh. The man and his car were gone, but the woman’s car was still there. I didn’t see the woman; perhaps she was still sitting in her car. Fuming.

PS I’ve been in each of their situations so I can sympathize with both of them. The parking car situation, that is. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been to a church service of any kind.