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So bear with me on this one.
Have you ever watched someone park their car, leave a shopping cart somewhere, walk through a doorway or just generally move about in public and immediately created an entire narrative about who they are as a human being?
Just me? OK.
And before we go any further, I realize this is not necessarily a kind thing to do. We shouldn't judge people. We don't know what they're going through. We don't know their story.
I know all of this.
And yet…
I ran into Home Depot the other day and parked next to a truck.
Now, trucks deserve their own conversation because some of them no longer fit nicely into the parking spaces we've created for vehicles. Which raises an entirely different question: Are we making vehicles too big for our infrastructure, or is our infrastructure too small for our vehicles?
I don't know.
But drive down Glenwood Avenue in anything larger than a compact car and tell me you don't instinctively suck in your stomach when another car passes you.
Anyway.
This particular truck was parked up front and rather impressively taking up two spaces.
I got out of my car, looked at it and thought, "Wow. Rude."
Then I went inside because I had important things to do.
My husband was out of town, which obviously meant it was the perfect time for me to begin a new home project without anyone around to ask unnecessary questions like, "Do you know how to do that?" or "Should we maybe wait until I get home?"
No. We should not.
I gathered everything I needed -- or at least everything I believed I needed -- and headed toward the exit.
That's when a man stepped directly in front of me.
And walked.
Very. Very. Slowly.
Now, I recognize that leisurely walking is perfectly acceptable. Some people apparently enjoy moving through the world without pretending they're competing in the final leg of The Amazing Race.
I am not one of those people.
But it wasn't just that he was walking slowly. He was walking directly in the middle of the pathway, leaving absolutely no room to pass on either side, while casually sipping a beverage he'd purchased and apparently opened inside the store.
And as I followed behind him, trying to calculate my opportunity to break left or right, I had one thought:
I bet this guy owns that truck parked next to me.
I don't know why.
I just knew.
His walking matched the parking.
Both seemed to say, "I have selected this amount of space for myself, and the rest of you can figure it out."
Eventually, the doors opened, he went one direction and I made a beeline for my car.
For one brief moment, I thought, See, Lisa? You were wrong. You can't determine someone's personality based on how they park.
Growth, maturity, and personal development all happening right there in the Home Depot parking lot.
And then I saw him get into another truck.
Parked even worse.
I felt vindicated.
Which is probably not the lesson I should have taken from this experience.
But here's where I had to turn the judgment back on myself.
Because I used to be the person who mobile-ordered coffee, pulled up to the curb, put my car in park, jumped out, ran inside, grabbed my drink and came back.
I had all the reasons.
"I'm only going to be 30 seconds."
"I'm not really blocking anyone."
"There aren't many cars here."
"I don't have the additional minute to park."
All perfectly logical explanations for the fact that I simply did not want to park in an actual parking space and walk an additional 42 feet.
Eventually, though, I realized I felt like a diva doing it.
Not because parking at the curb made me a terrible human being. It didn't. But because in that moment, I was only thinking about what was most convenient for me.
And that didn't really match who I wanted to be.
Maybe that's the part I find fascinating.
Our tiny behaviors say things.
Not everything. We certainly shouldn't diagnose someone's entire personality based on a crooked Chevy Silverado at Home Depot.
Sometimes crooked parking simply means crooked parking.
I've pulled into spaces so badly that when I come back outside I'm genuinely surprised someone hasn't left a note asking if I was experiencing a medical emergency.
But even that tells me something.
Usually that my brain was somewhere else. I was rushing. Distracted. Thinking about the next five things instead of the thing I was actually doing.
Maybe the question isn't whether we can determine someone's entire character by how they park, walk through a store or leave their shopping cart.
We can't.
Maybe it's whether the little ways we move through the world match the person we believe ourselves to be.
Do we notice that someone else needs to get around us?
Do we put the cart back?
Do we hold the door?
Do we take two seconds to straighten the car?
Do we occasionally move slightly faster when there's a visibly impatient woman behind us carrying supplies for a home improvement project she probably has no business starting while her husband is out of town?
These aren't monumental acts of character.
They're tiny ones.
And maybe that's exactly why they matter.
Because most of life isn't made up of the big moments when we're consciously trying to be good humans.
It's parking lots and grocery aisles and coffee shops and sidewalks.
It's the little spaces we share with everyone else.
And apparently, if you're going to take up two of those spaces, just know that someone like me may be nearby creating an entire fictional biography about you.
From me to you, I'll work on that.