Can't really get excited over this. I would have probably put my pizzas in the car and then ask her if I could help her.

After running across my share of careless and disrespectful individuals I have decided that some people are just too stinking stupid to know when they have done something rude.  I blame their parents.  I use the rude behavior of others as a learning opportunity for my children.  I quiz them about what is wrong with what just happened and ask them what should have been handled differently.   Being polite is a lost art.  It amazes me how some folks will think nothing about behaving rudely in front of strangers.   Especially teenagers.  I get after all kinds of people for using foul language in front of me.   Drop an F-bomb in my presence and I will hold my cell phone in front of your face and ask for your grandmother's phone number so that I can call her up and let you talk that way while she can hear it.  Grown men will stutter, stammer and apologize once they get over their shock at being taken to task for their thoughtless behavior.  I do not care whether I am at a hockey game or in an office building it is never acceptable to curse in front of a lady. 

It was rude and inconsiderate of this lady but I wouldn't let myself get so worked up over it unless my car was damaged.  There are so many things to stress or get angry over that I have learned to pick my battles carefully.  I don't want to die young from stress!  I probably would have picked them up off my car and held them for her while she opened her car door and sent her off with a "Have a good day".

You live in Bakersfield. I don't know what else to say. If you said anything, she would have chewed you out like you did something to her. I guarantee it. I've never encountered such complete !@#@$%^&*() in my life.

Normal people don't act like this.

Maybe you should have knocked her boxes off the car, then stabbed her. Isn't that how things are *handled* in the NE?

Just kidding.

I bet it ruined the paint on the trunk of that car.

--virgil

Rip, What was the approximate age of this woman?

 apropos of nothing, the other day I saw a semi-restored model A ford car in almost mint condition.   It was just there sitting in a guy's garage.

--virgil

proam: 

I'd probably put her about 40 or so.  Give a take a couple years.

I'd have thought she was younger. In answer to your question, either arrogance or just no manners. Wonder what would have taken place had you just taken the boxes and set them on her own car? 

I had a lady set her purse on the fender of my Panterra a few months ago. I told her and her Husband that I wanted their name and address. If she damaged it, I'd sent them the bill. Her Husband about pissed himself when he realized that it was a 1971 Panterra that was unrestored and original paint. He scolded his Wife on the spot. The original paint adds about $10,000 to the value of the car.

Hell,  I was even at a car show. Some people are just too stupid to exist in public............

Pete, yup, it happened in Bakersfield..wouldn't have happened anywhere else.

I'm sorry but I fail to see why every story of acts of poor behavior are almost always followed by a comment about "well gee, it's Bakersfield, what do you expect?" Like it never happens in any other city.

If I had presence of mind and thought of it, I'd take them off my car and put them on hers without saying a word.  Trouble is I"d probably think of it 5 miles down the road.

LOL Proam, we think alike here.  I was writing mine while you were posting yours.

pp2, Where do you live? Not address, just city, or state?

He lives in Bpatch, but he's not a local. He's a transplant.

She would not have been in the position to get mad at you for it, right Nancy?

tonyh Thanks for the answer. Do you know where he transplanted from?

That much, I can't remember. He's not one that I keep track of. He's not a threat.

Proam, I wouldn't care at all that she got mad at me.  It's just that I never think of the cool stuff till later.  LOL..I have been smacking my forehead thinking "why didn't I say......"  Or do.

Did the lady have a disability ?

--virgil

Even a disability wouldn't matter. Inconsiderate is inconsiderate. That's all there is to it.

Well,

some people are inconsiderate becuase of their disability .

so, there could be more to it than "that's al there is to it. "

--virgil

Yep, you're right. It's called having a chip on their shoulder for life not being fair to them. Nevertheless, it doesn't excuse it or make it OK. It's still wrong. So, that takes us back to what I said earlier.........That's all there is to it.

oh, ....

--virgil

Tony,

What kind of expensive scotch are drinking tonight ?

--virgil

None. I'm sick and watching Austin City Limits.

Tonyh is right. SW Bakersfield. Where I'm from (San Jose, California and proud of it!!!) nobody would even think about doing something so (dare I say) "retarded" to somebody elses car simply out of respect (something that is a little lacking here). Yeah, I'm a transplant for about 7+ years now. I've yet to say that I'm "from" bakersfield if I'm somewhere else. I just live here. You guys are stuck with me for a while at least.

Deal with it.

Nancy, it's always nice to hear about people sticking up for Bakersfield. It really must be a tough job.

Aw, C'mon Pete, San Jose has got Jug Heads too. I go there on business once or twice a year and just like everywhere else I go, I've seen 'em.

I'm afraid that you've been away for too long and are starting to forget the bad and only remember the good.

so  many words over something so silly .

It's gotta be the air quality, and perhaps the heat  ... that combined with too much fried food.

--virgil

PP2, Are you serious? There are rude people everywhere, not just in Bakersfield. Even in San Jose! 

What is a BBW?

I think it goes much deeper than just the pizza boxes on the car.

This whole rant is about the lack of respect for other peoples' property. There are just too many people out there who are so self centered that they have no respect for others.

My little Sister is so much that way that it aggravates the snot out of me. I love her dearly, but her entire lifestyle just drives me nuts. Even in her 30's, she can't understand that her actions effect other peoples' lives. As much as I hate to admit it, I think that she just doesn't care....

Small wonder why she can't keep a friend longer than about a year..................................

BBW = Big Beautiful Woman. She was Fat. I learned this term from my kids.

 You know, it's  respectful  to offfer to hold the lady's pizzas for her, off of the1989 white honda accord.

--virgil

I don't have a problem with you being here Pete.  I've grown used to see you.  It's just a shame though, that you've saddled yourself with a place you dislike so much.  It's really your loss more than mine.

And no, it's not difficult at all to defend Bakersfield..it's my home and I live here by choice...not by coercion as you must be...to be so unhappy and all.

As for people in San Jose not daring to put something on someone elses car...that's positively laughable.  I hardly think you'd know if it did happen unless you heard it on a blog of course.  You make it sound like it would make headlines  if it happened there.

Don't touch my car !

--virgil

Tony, those are the ones I say have no "old" friends.

But you're right about the lack of courtesy.  I still go by the old saw that if a gate is closed when you go through it, close it after you, if you drop it pick it up and so it goes.

In San Jose, I don't worry about it because I'm driving a rental.

But Virgil, you're right about MY car when I'm home. It could very well get your jaw broke. I don't play.

 Nancy, P2P isn't here by choice. The good people of San Jose have exiled him to do penance in Bakersfield gulag, at least for a while.

(Sorry P2P, that was crass of me to make a joke at your expense).

Dragoon, I knew he wasn't here by choice, I just wasn't sure what coercion was used.  :-)

I missed that part in your post, sorry Nancy.

Sounds like life to me, RW.  But here, Darryl can tell you all about it:  www.youtube.com/watch.  My favorite part?  "..I know it's tough, but you gotta suck it up....."

If that doesn't help, then let me share my mantra with you, as illustrated here:  www.youtube.com/watch  My favorite part?  "Lighten up while you still can.."  

Oh.  And watch your blood pressure.

welp heres a few lifes experiences of having lived in san jose for a few years that i wont ever forget.. i gotta admit it wasnt a better part of my life..rude self centered people everywhere..at one apartment we got an eviction notice because my wife took some sand from the play area to make a sand castle and they accused us of having a cat..They never even took the time to knock on our door to ask  ..it was there in our mail box the next day..we went above the managers head and could have stayed but who wants to live with a jerk like that peering out their windows with binoculars ...

over the years I worked at national semiconductor memorex and ibm..if you miss a day of work you better be in really good with the foreman ..such as help supply a drug habit ..speak their foreign language etc,,because they always had a line of replacments ready in the wings. ..when my son was born here because the wife wanted him born in the same hospital she was..i was lucky it was on my days off because they refused to give me time off..i had to drive down here ..see him say i love you to the wife and drive right back..i had to fly her and him up on my next day off..

you get the warm fuzzy feeling of being a number not a human being...traffic anywhere is horrendous..the freeways are backed up and at a stand still every morning and evening from over crowding *ALL* over the bay area...I could go on about what a great place it is but why waste my time

ya sounds like heaven PP..would I ever move back?? NOPE not in this life time..

Sioux - "you get the warm fuzzy feeling of being a number not a human being...traffic anywhere is horrendous..the freeways are backed up and at a stand still every morning and evening from over crowding *ALL* over the bay area...I could go on about what a great place it is but why waste my time"

I'd like to echo that sentiment. I was born in Bakersfield but spent my formative years and early adulthood growing up in the L.A. basin communities and Huntington Beach. I moved back to Bakersfield in 1975 and though I initially missed the beaches, I soon began to appreciate the benefits of living in a smaller city with mostly conservative values. The people are friendlier and you don't get the feeling of being just a grain of sand. Vendors and restaurateurs remember you. You will see familiar faces wherever you go in this fair city. It is centrally located and you can be at the beach or a wilderness area in a relatively short period of time if you feel the need to get away. The cost of living here is definitely a plus. I like it here.

RipWriter, there is an old saying, "patience groweth the soul."

 When does someone so blatantly cross the line from being nice to who gives a damn?  What causes it?

IMHO~ the day you try to teach someone "manners and respect" and consider letting them "have it" the way to do it.  

As to the cause, you have met the enemy and become like them.

P.S.  Pete...Some of my best friends, and my son, have been described using "r-word". Most of them have such joy in their lives and hearts that they would not be an apt allegory for the behavior  you describe. 

sagefever:

OK I'm really not understanding something here.  Because I kept my mouth shut, because I didn't go off on her the way I wanted, makes me LIKE HER?  I've met the enemy and become like them... I don't disrespect other people's property in any way, shape or form.  I was taught respect from a VERY young age.

So I challenge you to show me how I've become like this woman who disrespected my roommate's car.

 Writer, 

It's your misplaced sense of self-worth identified in that of your roommate's 1989 white honda accord - stunned into disbelief,  as you were.

--virgil

Rip:  I was grown before I ever heard the expression "Do one to others before they do one to you."  After it sank in, it was funny!  Life is where it takes all kinds, and before long you've met them all.  In other words, you ain't seen nothin' yet.  Just don't be surprised when someone really nice comes along to make up for the others. 

"Challenge " me? LOL... No need to be dramatic...my point is that if you want a quick emotional release "letting them have it" works. But then you are just as rude.

I am a lot older  than you ( boy that old saw ) but life has shown me that the best way to deal with the rude and clueless is with a smile. It also offers you the opportunity to teach by example,if nothing else I find it baffles people.

There are so many more important things than a pizza box and a car.

Oh, and Rip:  keep your sense of humor, and retain the manners you were taught.  It'll never do you wrong.  Doing the right thing when nobody's looking -- I think that's called integrity.  Yes, and we all -- or at least I do -- fall short occasionally.