It was just another day on the construction site. I’ve been in this job for over 20 years, so I’ve seen my fair share of strange things. But this day? This day was different.
I’m Bob, 40 years old, and I’m the foreman for a construction crew working on a house high up on a hill we jokingly call “Mount Hellscape.” Sure, it’s not a real mountain, but when you’re hauling lumber up a narrow dirt path in the middle of July, it feels pretty close to one.
We’ve been working at this site for weeks now, and let me tell you, it’s no easy task. There’s no road to get up here. Everything — every board, every nail, every beam — has to be carried by hand, uphill. It’s hard, hot work.
We have two spots down at the bottom of the hill where we can park, just two. They’re the only spots that allow deliveries to get through without us dragging stuff up the hill one by one. And just to make sure no one else uses them, they’re clearly marked: No Parking. Tow Away Zone. Simple enough, right?
“Bob!” My buddy Mike called from the scaffolding, waving his arm. “Jerry’s on the phone. Says the lumber delivery’s coming early!”
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and grabbed my cell. “Jerry? How far out are you, man?”
“Three minutes tops, Bob! I’ve got your roof trusses, plus everything else on the manifest,” Jerry said, his voice crackling through the line.
“I’ll clear the loading zone. See you in three!” I said, hanging up.
So, I started down the hill, heading to the bottom where our trucks park. The moment I rounded the corner of the path, I saw her. A shiny white SUV, parked smack in the middle of one of our two precious spots. The engine was idling, and there she was, the woman, sitting in the driver’s seat, texting away on her phone.
I felt my jaw tighten. We deal with this sort of thing almost every day because of the school nearby, but it’s usually a quick, polite request and that’s it. Usually. But not today.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said, walking up to her window with what I hoped was a friendly face. “You’re parked in a no-parking zone. We’ve got a lumber delivery coming in just a few minutes.”
She barely glanced up from her phone. The window rolled down halfway. “I’ll be just a few minutes,” she said, still not looking at me. “Your truck isn’t even here yet. Chill out.”
The window rolled back up before I could say anything else. I stood there, dumbfounded for a second. Did she just tell me to “chill out”?
I could hear the rumbling of a massive truck in the distance, and I turned to see Jerry’s delivery truck rounding the corner, ready to unload. I quickly knocked on her window again. After a few taps, she finally lowered it again.
“What?” she snapped.
“The delivery truck is here,” I said, trying to stay calm. “You’re in a no-parking zone. We really need you to move.”
She glanced at the truck and then back at me. “Can’t you just unload around me? It’s not that big of a deal.”
The window rolled up again. My polite smile froze. This was going nowhere.
“Fine,” I muttered, walking back to the truck. “We’ll work around you.”
Jerry leaned out of his truck’s window when I got back. “What’s the plan, Bob?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
I couldn’t help but grin. “She wants us to work around her. Let’s do exactly that.”
Jerry’s eyes lit up. “Say no more!”
I nodded. “Pull in as close to her driver’s side as you can. Let’s see how she likes being boxed in between your truck and the porta-potty.”
With precision, Jerry carefully maneuvered his truck, inching it into the spot next to her SUV, blocking her driver’s side door completely. On the other side, the porta-potty sat, making sure she couldn’t escape in that direction either. There was no way out.
“Perfect,” I said, barely able to hold back a chuckle.
“She looks mad,” Jerry said with a grin, glancing in his mirror.
“Let’s get to work,” I said, “I’ll make a call.”
“Who ya calling?” Jerry asked, already lowering the truck’s ramp.
“Parking enforcement,” I answered, pulling out my phone. “Just to cover our bases.”
As I dialed, I could see the woman through her windshield, her phone glued to her ear. She was furious, probably trying to figure out how to wiggle out of her mess.
“Bob!” someone shouted from up the hill. I turned to see my crew arriving to help with the unloading.
“Let’s move, guys! We’ve got a roof to build!” I called out.
As we unloaded the massive pile of lumber, I kept an eye on the SUV. The woman, now realizing she was stuck, began to gesture wildly on her phone, her face full of anger. But there was no escape.
“The parking officer said she’ll be here in about 30 minutes,” I told Jerry, as we kept unloading.
“Thirty minutes?” Jerry groaned, but then perked up. “Well, we’ll be here. This is at least an hour’s job.”
About twenty minutes into our unloading, we saw a small boy in a blue backpack approach the SUV. It was then that the woman realized she couldn’t get out through her driver’s side door. She awkwardly climbed across the center console and tumbled out of the passenger side in a less-than-graceful heap.
“Mommy, why are you coming out that way?” the boy asked, loud enough for us to hear.
“Because these IDIOTS blocked me in,” she hissed, straightening her blouse. She glared at us and shoved her son into the back seat of the SUV before marching over to where Jerry and I stood, checking off the inventory.
“I need to leave NOW!” she demanded, crossing her arms. “Move. Your. Truck.”
Before I could respond, Jerry spoke up.
“Ma’am,” he said, his voice dripping with patience, “In order to unload the lumber, we had to unstrap it. Company policy strictly prohibits moving the truck with an unsecured load. Safety regulations, you know? I’m sure you understand.”
Her face went red. “Trash your policy! I have somewhere to be!”
“We asked you nicely to move earlier,” I reminded her. “You told us to work around you. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
“This is ridiculous! I’m going to report both of you!” she fumed.
Just as she was about to storm off, we heard a familiar sound — a parking enforcement vehicle pulling up behind Jerry’s truck. Officer Martinez stepped out, clipboard in hand. The woman hadn’t noticed yet.
“Morning, Bob,” Officer Martinez said, raising an eyebrow as she looked at the situation. “Got your call about the parking.”
Before I could say anything, the woman finally realized the officer’s presence. She was too busy yelling at me to notice the siren earlier.
“I swear to God, if you don’t move this truck right now—” she shouted.
I couldn’t resist. “Can’t you just pull out around it? It’s not that hard,” I said with a smirk.
Her eyes went wide as she heard her own words thrown back at her. Her face turned bright red. It was priceless.
“Screw you!” she spat, spinning on her heel and marching back to her SUV.
Officer Martinez raised an eyebrow. “Guess she’s not too happy with that suggestion.”
The woman quickly got back in her SUV, threw it in reverse, and slammed it backward. The SUV jumped like a goat on roller skates, crashing straight into our poor porta-potty. It fell over with a loud, disgusting splash of blue goo, as though it needed a minute to recover.
“Hoo boy,” I muttered under my breath.
The woman, in a panic, threw the SUV into drive and tried to escape by mounting the sidewalk. She made it halfway up before the SUV got stuck, its wheels spinning uselessly. The engine roared in frustration.
Officer Martinez ran toward the vehicle. “TURN OFF YOUR ENGINE! NOW!”
The woman froze, her face draining of color as she realized who was standing behind her. The officer had witnessed everything.
“Step out of the vehicle, ma’am,” Officer Martinez ordered, her hand on her radio.
“I… these men trapped me,” she stammered, climbing out of the SUV reluctantly.
“Hands where I can see them,” Officer Martinez said.
“My son’s in the car!” she cried, her voice rising in panic.
“I’m aware. That’s going to be an additional concern,” Officer Martinez replied, speaking into her radio to request backup.
Within minutes, a second police car arrived, and the woman was sitting on the curb, handcuffed, her anger now replaced by fear. Her son watched from the back seat of the SUV, wide-eyed.
“She told us to work around her,” Jerry explained to Officer Rodriguez, a tall man who had just arrived.
“Then she decided to take matters into her own hands,” I added, gesturing to the mess the SUV had created.
“I never refused to move!” she shouted from the curb. “They never asked me!”
Officer Martinez shook her head. “Ma’am, they called parking enforcement when you first refused to move. That’s why I’m here.”
“This is all a misunderstanding. I was just picking up my son,” she muttered, her voice barely audible.
“In a clearly marked no-parking zone,” Officer Rodriguez added, scribbling in his notepad. “And then you operated that vehicle recklessly with a child inside.”
The woman’s shoulders slumped, her fight gone.
“Home phone number?” Officer Rodriguez asked, turning to the boy in the back seat. “We need to call someone to pick you up.”
As Jerry finished signing off on his delivery, the tow truck arrived to take away the SUV. The woman, looking completely defeated, was escorted into Officer Rodriguez’s patrol car.
“Driving on a suspended license, too,” Officer Martinez muttered to me as she finished her report. “Plus child endangerment, destruction of property, and reckless driving. She’s going to be dealing with this for a long time.”
I watched as an older woman — probably the boy’s grandmother — arrived to pick him up, her face tight with worry, as if she’d been here before.
Later that evening, as the sun set over our construction site, I sat on a stack of lumber with my crew, sipping a cold soda.
“You should’ve seen her face when you threw her own words back at her,” Jerry laughed, cracking open another can.
“I almost felt bad,” I admitted, grinning. “Almost.”
“Don’t feel bad. Some people need to learn the hard way,” Jerry said with a wink.
“What was the damage on the porta-potty?” someone asked, chuckling.
“Company’s sending a replacement tomorrow,” I replied. “Luckily, it was due for service anyway.”
The crew all laughed, and we raised our cans in a toast.
“To entitled parents everywhere,” Jerry said, “May the parking spots they steal always come with a side of instant karma.”
“And may they learn that in construction, as in life,” I added with a grin, “sometimes the harder you push, the more you get stuck.”
We all laughed again, and as twilight settled over the half-built house, I couldn’t help but smile. Tomorrow would bring more challenges, more materials to haul, and more problems to solve. But at least we’d have a clear parking spot.
And somewhere in town, one mom learned a very expensive lesson about entitlement. Maybe next time, she’d take the chill pill.
