I had a Border's coupon burning a hole in my email in-box, so I printed it out and headed toward Alameda Town Center (actually, it's written Alameda Towne Centre but I that is so hilariously pretentious I can't bear to spell it like that). On Christmas Eve day. I should stop typing this post right now and make an appointment to have my head examined, I know. Anyway, I had given myself the "just hold your shit together" pep talk, trying to prepare myself for the hoardes that were surely descending on the mall. I didn't make it very far in before I found myself blasting my horn and flipping off some nasty cow in a silver Infinity who ran the stop sign and cut me off. Happily, I managed to get a decent parking spot near the book store. I switched off the motor and got out of the car.

As I walked toward the entrance to Borders, I saw two cars in the lane, clearly at a stand off over a soon-to-open-up parking spot. Only trouble was, neither driver would move and the poor woman in the parking spot couldn't back out because there wasn't enough room. I watched this for several seconds, then looked at the woman in the parking spot. She just shook her head. So I made an appeal to the two drivers.

"Look," I said, "Both of you want this spot, but since you're both here, this woman can't back out, so neither of you can have this spot! So you all lose, here. One of you is going to have to let this go and back off so she can get out!" I indicated the woman still trying to back out of the parking spot. Both drivers stared at me, neither one willing to budge even an inch.

I tried again. "ONE of you needs to move!" I made a separation gesture with my hands. "Come on, someone here must have some holiday spirit! Please, let this woman get out of the spot, then you can fight over it!"

They both backed up! "THANK YOU!" I called out to the drivers. The woman smiled and thanked me as she backed out of the parking spot. I didn't even look back to see which driver ended up with the parking spot. A guy in a Jeep who had watched the whole thing smiled at me and gave a thumbs-up as I passed him. "That was fuckin' awesome!" he said.

I bought my 2010 Photographers' Market with my 30% off coupon and got the hell away from the mall as fast as I could.

Fin.