Every year in the (northern) historical part of my state is an event called Art on the Green.
It’s a time when local crafters and artists get together to sell their wares. It’s nice for the consumer also, because you get to look at/purchase a lot of original stuff.
The setting doesn’t hurt either; brick sidewalks, a cobblestone road, old buildings, and a beautiful park which is bordered on one side by a highly slightly polluted Delaware River. (Hey it can’t be perfect, ok?)
Anyway, I really look forward to it every year, because I’m always able to find some really cute stuff.
In spite of the fact that this little portion of the town is very high end, surrounding it are some of Delaware’s “finest”. It is in New Castle, you know. I’m serious, you’ve got rednecks, white trash, and some of the most ghetto of all ghetto people. I’m allowed to talk this way about them, as I lived in New Castle up until I got married and finally moved on up to the East Side. (really where I live now is west of New Castle, but you get it, right?) It’s really surprising, a culture shock even, when you leave the quaint little historic area and enter “the ghetto”.
At the end of our time there, we were walking back to our car with all of our stuff and were in the process of loading it, when this adorable little old lady pulled next to us and asked if we were leaving. We said yes, and told her we would try to move as quickly as possible, but there were quite a lot of purchases made between myself, my mother and my Aunt who is notorious for her shopping abilities. Some of the items were quite large and took a bit of maneuvering to get into the back of my mother’s minivan. The little old lady (known from this moment on as LOL, i know, ironic) assured us that she could wait and would, that we should take our time.
While we were moving pretty quickly, we also figured that the chances of another car coming down the road were pretty slim as we were parked on the very infrequently traveled cobblestone road.
I wish I had a picture of this road to show you. It’s aesthetically pleasing, but certainly not practical unless you don’t mind changing the shocks in your car every month. It’s there because its an original road and it adds that “old world” feel to the area.
As I said before, it’s very infrequently traveled.
So, of course, up comes a minivan holding 4 or so women behind the little old lady. After about 1 minute of waiting for us to finish loading our stuff we hear:
“Excuse me! Could you please circle the road and come back around? We’re trying to park here!”
“I’ve been looking for a parking spot for a half hour, and they’re almost finished.” Answered LOL.
After another thirty seconds:
“This is ridiculous! Just circle! That’s all you have to do, I don’t feel like waiting for them to finish loading!!! Ramble, ramble, ramble……
At this point I was aggravated by this woman because it was difficult enough to load the car without this woman nagging the poor LOL. I then turned to the LOL and quietly said:
“Don’t you move honey, we should be done in another minute or two, she can wait.”
“Oh, I wasn’t planning on it.” she snickered.
More yelling ensued. Now this woman was just yelling to yell and she was being quite disruptive and attracting (negative) attention to herself.
We finally finished loading our stuff, with the woman still yelling in the background, when my Aunt just snapped.
“We’re finished, just chill out!” she yelled
“Who you tellin’ to chill out?!” asked the crazy woman
Then she starting yelling more, this time flinging disrespectful speak from her lips. So I chimed in.
“You need to calm down ma’am, we’re leaving right now, calm down.”
“I know you not telling me to calm down, who you telling to calm down?!” she answered
At this point, I realized that this woman was a lost cause (read: my mother demanded that I get into the van before I caused a raucous) and got into the van.
After we moved, the LOL was able to park her car in our spot, but it did take her some time as it required parallel parking which only aggravated the other woman further. Next thing we new, she was riding my mom’s tail and followed us that way until a school bus cut her off. Chuckle, chuckle *cough*
I must admit, my behavior was less than stellar, but I just can’t stand when people are so ridiculous. It was a beautiful day! We were all at a fabulous craft show! What is there to be so snippy about?
Oh well, I guess what they say is true;
You can take the girl out of The Castle, but you can’t take The Castle out of the girl.
