Last week tourists witnessed two New Yorkers arguing over a parking spot. One of them was me.
Here’s what happened.
My brother-in-law was visiting and he wanted to checkout the 9/11 memorial.
After 10 minutes of driving around, I noticed a guy was about to pull out of his spot.
It was one of those parallel parking type situation. I was behind the spot and another guy was in the front.
Except, I had arrived first and had been waiting longer than the other guy. And while waiting, the guy rolls down his window and says, “Get the hell outta here.”
This really got me going.
As soon as the spot was available, we both pulled in. Half my car was in and half the other guy’s car was in. But the other guy kept backing in and was about to hit my car.
Here’s what happened next.
Me: “You touch my car and I’m calling the cops.”
Him: “You are stupid. You’r behind me, so by law, it’s your fault” and continued backing.
Me: “I have witnesses. Go ahead and hit my car.” and pulled out my phone.
Then he stopped.
By then a tourist bus had been standing there, waiting for us to clear the road.
Him: “I live here. I got all day.”
Me: “Yup, me too. I got time.”
We were both waiting to see who would blink first. I started feeling bad for blocking the tourist bus.
My mom in the backseat was saying, “Son, just give him the spot. We’ll find another one.”
My brother-in-law was taking pictures in case the guy hit my car.
And then the other guy stepped out of his car and said:
“Let’s decide with a coin toss”
Me: “Sounds good”
He comes over, pulls out a penny and tosses it. I called heads and won.
He drove off.
Parking my car never felt that good.
I also gotta respect the other guy for coming up with the coin toss solution.
The point of this story?
Sometimes winning is about not backing down and a bit of luck.
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