What in your town makes you cry? Part 1

I returned home from work on a Sunday when I was called in unexpectedly. I could not drop my bags fast enough to grab a beer from the fridge declaring silently 'I need to just get drunk'. This was after neighbors and folks visiting neighbors ruined my day after asking a simply request. I was not nasty or rude, sarcastic or any cocky tone. I didn't mean to come off as a bitch though I struggled with my weighty work bag and five more I gathered at the store and just wanted to get in the house but I don't believe even if I was struggling their response was warranted.

I keep thinking the world and the people in it and around my personal space are still as they once were twenty years ago, considerate. I am so shocked each time they are not which is each time I encounter an event with someone. I should ask you first what you would expect from people if you lived in the house I live in. The house is the only house on the block that sets back off the street with a small upward climb for a front yard. There is a walkway way from the porch that leads to a set of 5 cement stairs that ends at the sidewalk. Because the hill I call a front yard I can not pull my trash cans up(One for recycling another for regular), so I place them to the side of the stairs off the sidewalk. I can not pull them up the hill and they are to large to pull them up the stairs. I usually park at the end of my stairs directly in front of my home, because I live there of course. If you were to park while visiting the home across the street from my house and the street itself had only a few scattered cars parked along the road would you choose the space and the space in front of where they would obviously park, (because there are two visitors in separate cars) directly in front of a house whose stairs begin there across the street from the house your visiting? Or, would you park on the other side behind that house your visitings own car or even just past these stairs thinking the obvious 'the person who lives here likely parks here!'

I came home and two women are doing something in the trunk 'unloading or loading' directly in front of my house. At first, I thought they were visiting my house but couldn't think why since I never saw them before. I figure I'll park in front of them but there was another car parked there as well. Now I am parking three car lengths from my stairs while noticing plenty of other places they could have chosen. How lazy have people become that the need for fewer steps to reach a door is worth putting out others? I pay for my home and live on this street while they are visitors enjoying my costly luxury. I was more discouraged than pissed. That would pass quickly.

I left the car gathering my many bags taking up both hands and headed past car one then car two reaching my stairs and said to the woman 'Next time could you park somewhere else' and the hostility that struck me was like hitting me with a baseball bat upside the head, unexpected and vicious. 'I don't see your name on the road' one woman says. I must have looked stunned giving off a sense of vulnerability to the wolf pack before me perceiving an easy kill of this rabbit! Before I could filter the words to respond the second woman comes out with 'Why don't you move your trash cans' waving her hand gesturing towards my house. Now I'm pissed and I turned from them knowing this is useless and unproductive while the weight of the bags called for me to just get inside and unload I said 'Fuck you' and up the stairs, down the walkway I went. I heard the actual neighbor yell out 'Don't use that language in front of my kids' So I said it again and went inside. Now I am a nemesis to a neighbor I was once friendly with over a parking dispute that is directly in front of my house.

One request and it brought me to tears because of the defensive, insulting, and aggressive response that followed. There was no discussion, adults working it out, understanding, or consideration. Just a 'how dare you ask of us anything you insignificant worm!'.

Why would they respond this way? I think it may be they are used to some city parking like NY.

Maybe that is just the way a loveless society behaves.

Scripture says there will be 'a generation without love' and it is accurate yet again.