I would like to take this opportunity to thank the young woman and her friends who I had the displeasure of having to yell at last Tuesday at Walmart around 7:15 p.m.

You and your friends squeezed into a small vehicle. While I was waiting for you to move your car, so I could put my infant great nephew in the car, my 7-year-old great-nephew was trying to return a cart that someone had decided to leave in the middle of the parking lot instead of returning it to the store or one of the corrals provided for them. You decided to start backing up out of your parking space. Not once did I see you turn your head to see if anything was coming or if anyone was behind you. When your car started moving, I had to scream at you to get you to stop. I told you that you were about to hit someone and instead of apologizing, you and your friends laughed. I don’t see anything funny about running into someone, especially a child. After you showed your inability to be care about other people, you put your car back in gear and started to back up again, and again I had to yell at you to stop. My great-nephew had moved out of the way, but the cart was still in back of your car. Perhaps I should have just let you hit the cart, but I’m not that kind of person. Not only do I blame you for your reckless disregard for safety behind the wheel of a car, I blame the person who couldn’t be bothered to return the cart to an appropriate place. I am trying to teach my great-nephew to be courteous and move carts out of the parking lot when people are too lazy to return them, but that’s a story for another day. The moral of this story is, if you can’t drive, can’t take the time to look around, have your friends check behind you, then you don’t belong behind the wheel of a car. Perhaps next time an adult won’t be watching and you’ll end up hitting and hurting someone.

 

Kathy Diaz

Albert Lea