Encounter on Palm Coast Parkway

The encounter began as I was driving east on Palm Coast Parkway with the ultimate goal of picking up my wife at the Exxon station on Palm Harbor Drive. She had driven her car to the station to get an oil change. I was going to pick her up, take her to lunch and then take her back to the station so that she could retrieve her car and get on with her day.

I needed to make a left turn off of Palm Coast Parkway on to Palm Harbor Drive. Since the parkway is a divided four lane road, I needed to navigate a left turn lane and then proceed through a stoplight which was located at the west bound lanes of the parkway. As I turned into the left turn lane I noticed that a minivan which was attempting to gain access to the east bound lanes was blocking the intersection. I casually looked in my rearview mirror and saw that I had enough time to get back into the inside parkway lane and maneuver around the minivan in order to get turned onto Palm Harbor Drive.

Since moving to Palm Coast, I have determined that ninety percent of the occupants are from the New York/New Jersey area. I also quickly found that they brought their big city driving habits with them when they came south. But I quickly adapted to their fake swagger and bravado and mixed in well with their reckless driving habits. I have always been an aggressive driver myself so I didn’t need to change my habits too much.

So, I maneuvered into the east bound traffic, passed the area where the minivan was stopped and then headed north toward the stoplight on Palm Harbor Drive. Without incident, I thought. As any good New Yorker would want to do, I flipped off the minivan driver as I passed. I didn’t even look at the driver. I just gave the vehicle a perfunctory salute, in deference to the driver, of course.

I then casually slowed down for the stop light which was located between the east and west parkway lanes. As I was sitting at the light I naturally glanced in my rearview mirror just to keep myself aware of my surroundings. From the first glance, I saw that this wasn’t going to be a normal stop at a light. I noticed that the minivan had made a U turn and was now directly behind me. The driver was a middle aged woman with matronly eye glasses. She was frenetically waving a white piece of paper in her hands. After a few nanoseconds went by, I opined to myself that she was proudly announcing to me that she had my license number. I was so amused by her glee that I saluted her once again. She then produced a cell phone for me to see. She dialed a number and then frenetically shook the phone with a sly grin on her face. Since she seemed so proud of herself, I saluted her again. This activity went on for another thirty seconds: salute, frenetic wave, salute…

When the light turned, I proceeded on to the station entrance. As I stopped my vehicle, I noticed that the minivan had followed me into the station and was now parked beside me with the passenger door next to my driver door. I immediately jumped out of my truck and initiated a cordial conversation about her stalking habits. She was accommodating to the encounter because she rolled the passenger door window down and seemed to be enjoying my discussion. However, I realized that she was still on her cell phone and that she was talking to a police dispatcher. I stopped yelling to catch my breath, only to hear her say to the dispatcher, “See what words he is using.” All the while, she was giving me this sly smile. I interpreted her behavior to mean that she thought that she had caught Peck’s little bad boy and had summoned the police to come and admonish me for my actions.

I told her to give me the phone so I could talk to the police but she refused. I was getting tired of this charade so I was about to sit back down in my truck and wait for the police to come. But, before I sat down, I called over to my wife, who was witnessing the whole affair, to ask her if she still wanted to go to lunch. She replied that she wanted to find out what was going on before leaving the scene. I then requested that she support her husband in a time of crisis but my pleas fell on deaf ears.

Then, a person of interest, who was standing at the entrance to the station’s food court made some condescending remarks about my behavior and then told me to move my truck out of the way because it was blocking the entrance. I gently reminded him that the minivan was actually blocking the entrance, so she should be admonished, not I.

This whole situation reminded me of the best selling book, “Blink.” In Blink, the author notes that when a human becomes angry or stressed, most of his brain shuts down and he focuses only on the immediate target and does not respond effectively to outside stimuli. In this type of situation, the human’s brain becomes as efficient as a dog’s brain. The human, in short, becomes “mind blind.” That was the state I was in: mind blind. I was acting like a dog, too.

So, the good Samaritan agreed with me and walked over to the minivan and asked her to move her vehicle because she is blocking the entrance. She reluctantly agreed and pulled beside one of the gasoline pumps and proceeded to go through the motions of filling her tank.

I, in turn, sat back down in my truck, and decided to slowly think through my options at that point. My initial reaction was to leave the scene before the cops came. But, that action was obviated by the fact that my wife was still there and refused to go with me. The other problem was that I couldn’t remain where I was because I was partially blocking the entrance and all of the pump stations were full.

So, I decided to back out of the entrance, circle behind the station and park there. I could then wait in peace for the onslaught of the gendarmes. I did successfully back out and then circled around to the back of the station. But, as I was almost up to the back entrance to the station, I spied two police cars whizzing down the side road heading toward me. Uh oh. The moment of decision. Stay and face the music like a man or run for it. In an instance, I went into mind blind mode and decided to run for it. The two police cars passed me and then swerved into the station’s back entrance. I was home free. Oops, same old problem. The wife is still at the station. So, I had to make a U turn and go back. I parked behind the cop cars and then walked to the front of the station.

My wife met me with a tentative grin and told me that the cops were interviewing the lady in the minivan. I resigned myself to the situation and sat down on one of the fold out chairs located at the entrance to the food mart, relaxed and waited for my lecture from the cops.

Then, things started turning my way. After the cops listened to her complaints, they immediately berated her for calling dispatch about such a trivial matter. They thought that they were responding to an actual accident. After admonishing the woman, they walked into the food court, talked to the owner for a few seconds, proceeded to their cars and left. The minivan lady finished filling her tank, walked right past me without any recognition of me, paid for her gas and departed. I asked my wife if she still wanted to go to lunch, she agreed and so we fled the scene.

As I was pulling out of the lot, a guy in a blue sports car cut me off as he was entering the station. We exchanged salutes and I was about to make another U turn to confront the guy when my wife said, “That’s enough for today.”

I agreed. We then proceeded to the Mexican restaurant and shared some quesadillas and fried ice cream.

Man, it is tough maintaining this New York attitude.