Tyrant Of Her Particular Hill

On this day last week, a caravan of two cars headed east across middle North Carolina to take our daughter to her new collegiate home away from home. 

My daughter Randie was driving one car with her college roommate as passenger while my wife Andrea and I were in the other.

This was going to be a big day and a big undertaking.

Here’s what we were told at orientation a month ago about the move in process.

We would park our cars at the dorm, unload our cars and take stuff to the student’s room. Don’t take time to organize anything in the room, there would be time for that later. Once the cars are unloaded, move the cars to another parking lot so the next family can move in their stuff and so on and so on.

So everybody got that? We park the cars at the dorm, unload the cars, move the cars. Simple. Makes sense to me.

Even as we approached the dorm, I reminded Andrea that would need to move fast. Once we park the cars, we unload the cars and then move the cars so the next people in line can have their turn. 

We turned a corner on the narrow street outside Randie’s dorm and whoa! There were a lot of cars. But Randie found a space to park and I moved guided my car into the space next to her.

As we exited our cars, an ANGRY WOMAN with a da-glo vest and an college t-shirt began yelling at us.

“YOU CAN’T JUST PARK THERE LIKE THAT! IT’S NOT FAIR TO OTHER FAMILIES TRYING TO MOVE IN TO TAKE UP THOSE PARKING SPACES!!!”

 OK, what the fuck?!! Seriously?!?

I snapped back at her, “Hey, we know what the rules are! We’re going to UNLOAD THESE CARS, TAKE STUFF TO THE ROOM AND THEN COME BACK AND WE’LL MOVE THE DAMN CARS!!!!”

The ANGRY WOMAN retorts, “I DON’T WANT NOBODY CLAIMING THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO SO I’M MAKING SURE PEOPLE KNOW!!!”

“Well, I don’t need that from you because I KNOW and WE’RE WASTING TIME ‘cause we need to UNLOAD THESE CARS!!!”

This kind of person irks me. IRKS me! A small minded person who thinks they are king or queen of their particular hill, determined to extend their limited authority over anyone and everyone.

This woman, this ANGRY WOMAN was more of the tyrant of her particular hill. 


Well, to hell with her. We needed to get down to work with the task we drove in here to do: unload the cars, get shit to the room, move the cars.  

Instead of dividing our efforts between the two cars, we would focus on the one I drove so we can move it out faster.

A very nice gentleman named Brian (who I reckoned had to be about 15 years older than me but it way better shape) offered to help us.  Between 5 people, we cleared out one fully loaded car in 3 trips over about 15 minutes.

Randie’s room is on the 3^rd floor and yes, of course, there’s no elevator. Oh and Randie has elected to go to college in Satan’s Arm Pit and it’s August so it’s very hot and very humid. It's more than enough to irritate me. Thanks to ANGRY WOMAN, the fires of my irritation have already been stoked.

Here’s how the process worked for me.

1. Load myself down with as much shit as I could carry.
2. Snarl at the ANGRY WOMAN.
3. Stagger down the hall to the center of the dorm as I mutter to myself: BITCH! GRUMBLE! BITCH! BITCH! GRUMBLE! GRUMBLE!
4. Stumble up a flight of stairs to the 2^nd floor as I continue to mutter to myself: BITCH! GRUMBLE! BITCH! BITCH! GRUMBLE! GRUMBLE!
5. Stumble up a flight of stairs to the 3^rd floor as I continue to mutter to myself: BITCH! GRUMBLE! BITCH! BITCH! GRUMBLE! GRUMBLE!
6. Stagger down the hall to my daughter’s room as I persist in muttering  to myself: BITCH! GRUMBLE! BITCH! BITCH! GRUMBLE! GRUMBLE!
7. Stagger and stumble back to 1^st floor back to the car: BITCH! GRUMBLE! BITCH! BITCH! GRUMBLE! GRUMBLE!
8. Snarl at the ANGRY WOMAN.
9. Re-Load myself down with as much shit as I could carry.
10. And…REPEAT! BITCH! GRUMBLE! BITCH! BITCH! GRUMBLE! GRUMBLE!

After I deposited my final load in Randie’s room, I was staggering through the dorm lobby. I should point out there were various young people present, volunteers from the college who were kind and offered to help. I was too determined and pissed off to let anyone take any burden I had managed to scoop up into my arms.

But on this last trip and as one of these young people proffered a much welcomed cool cup of water, I felt compelled to share.

“Look, you guys have been so nice and I’ve been in such a bad mood, stomping through this lobby and muttering to myself but….

There was this ANGRY WOMAN out there!”

These young people were rather sympathetic to my plight with one young man commenting that someone had  spoken with ANGRY WOMAN.

I thanked them for their time and allowing me to vent. A young woman replied, "Oh, any time." 

I'm thinking I'm an old man with a lot to be angry about. She should be careful with that kind of carte blanche permission for me to vent.

Anyway...

I went outside to the now empty car while Randie, her roomie and Brian were getting to work unloading the other car.

I looked around for ANGRY WOMAN. I wanted to yell at her, "Hey, moving THIS car now and after only 15 minutes, you HATEFUL BITCH!" She was nowhere to be found. Maybe she was assigned another hill to be a tyrant over.

So I drove the car to the assigned parking lot for visitors which was over a mile away. Not a bad drive but I gotta walk that god damn mile back in the heat and the humidity of Satan's Arm Pit!

BITCH! GRUMBLE! BITCH! BITCH! GRUMBLE! GRUMBLE!