MLW: Lost in translation

Dear That's Life,
I have never felt so wanted in my entire life. People waiting for me — even people I do not know, have never met before and probably will never meet again. But when you have a parking space in the Roosevelt Field Mall four days before the biggest gift giving day of the year, you may suddenly find yourself being the most wanted person on earth — with dozens of cars waiting for you to leave. I know nothing about real estate, but I do know that those are primo locations. Of course, for those of us who have tried jockey for a parking space on or around Central Avenue on Erev Shabbos without losing a bumper or an eye, this kind of occurrence is just another day for you and me in paradise. (80s reference — check it out.)
Ever drive around and then see someone whose arms are filled with shopping bags and so you follow him, like a stalker, to his car in order to get that parking spot before anyone else does? Yeah — me, too. Sometimes you have go to do what you’ve got to do — it’s a dog-eat-dog world. But as the stalker, you also do not want to freak out the person whose spot you are taking. Seem too impatient for them to load their bags or too ambitious about taking the spot, it will backfire. He may load his bags ever so slowly, let the car idle while he makes a phone call or simply just stall all in an effort to teach you a lesson. Then there are the times when you follow someone and after following him around the lot and waiting patiently as the bags are loaded, the driver turns around to you and says, “Oh, sorry — we’re not leaving.” That hurts. Time to go stalk someone else.
Picking up my daughter from Central Ave. on Friday afternoon, she called to tell me there was a parking space right outside the store to which I was heading. “Should I save it for you?” she asked. Reminiscent of that “Cheers” episode when Woody saves a spot for Sam’s Corvette by actually lying down in the street, I asked her how she planned on doing that. Well, she had not thought that part out and I told her that lying down on the asphalt or even standing on the curb, hovering over the spot, was both unnecessary and seriously dangerous.