Ever Tried To Get Into The Wrong Car In The Parking Lot? I Did!

Let me just preface this entire story with this disclaimer and confidence-boosting personal affirmation. Thanks to a quit ChatGPT search, I am apparently NOT the only idiot in the world. There's some comfort in the fact that, according to a survey by Progressive Insurance, 16% of people have accidentally attempted to enter someone else's car.

YES!  Been there. Done that. In fact, I did it last Saturday morning at the grocery store.

I refer your attention to the photo above. You'll have to forgive the overly dramatized photo of me hitting myself in the forehead like I'm playing the self-harm version of Whack-a-Mole. You will also have to excuse the attention-getting flourishes of Canva text and graphics. What can I say? I live for embellishments.

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Let me, as accurately as possible, paint this picture for you. I do nearly all of my grocery shopping at 6am on Saturday or Sunday mornings. I try to be at the Kroger location nearest my house when the doors open for business. Yes. I am that person standing on the sidewalk staring at the locked doors like I am in the movie Dawn of the Dead. But, there is method in my madness. Or, madness in my method.

See, I shop early for two reasons. Well, okay, three. #1- I know a ton of people. If there are ten people in a room, I will likely know six of them.  #2- I am a social butterfly- even when couponing and trying to snag some kick-ass digital deals. #3- I need to be force-fed Adderral because I have zero attention span. If I am shopping and I see people that I feel compelled to talk to, it's freaking over. My 'quick' trip to the grocery store will inevitably turn into a three-day conference about broccoli prices and what you've been doing with yourself since we last spoke. It's ridiculous. I can't help myself. I am basically the love child of Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue. So, no offense. I shop early so I don't have to engage. I need to focus on deals and my shopping cart wheels.

After plowing through Kroger in a near-record eighteen minutes, I U-Scanned my lasagna ingredients, my garlic bread essentials, and various treats for my dogs Yogi and Simon. Then, I grabbed my bags and headed for the parking lot.

That's precisely when it happened. I unlocked my car doors and could not figure out why the back door of Fred the Fusion wasn't opening. I hit the key fob and tried again. That's right around the time that I said- out loud- "What in the $#%^ is wrong with my car door??!!  Why isn't it opening?"

That's when it hit me. I wasn't standing at Fred the Fusion. I wasn't trying to bust all up into Curtis the Camry. Fred the Fusion was right next door in the adjacent parking space. He was sitting there with his doors unlocked wondering what in the actual hell I was doing trying to get into a car that wasn't him.

Thankfully, the owner of Curtis the Camry was still inside Kroger and completely missed my attempted carjacking. I, for the reassurance of anyone possibly watching, just acted like nothing happened, quickly got into Fred the Fusion, and drove home.

My lasagna was wonderful by the way and the dogs loved their treats. Even a loser can score big wins.