Friday: Mothers, Jackasses, and Predators

Mothers:

Today my sister and I brought dinner to a woman who just had a baby. She lives in a giant house, brand new. The problems she speaks of the most, publicly at least, revolve around the new stove acting up and an incorrectly laid teak floor. On the way home, we stopped at the drugstore, and while waiting in the parking lot, I saw another mother, still in her fast-food restaurant apron, rushing into the store while clutching a two year old in her arms. Her hair flying, her face splotchy, her car dented and rusted.

Jackasses:

On the way home from the drugstore, we waited at a red light and watched two men in a truck try to get the attention of a woman in a convertible next to them. She glanced over at them as they leaned out the window and shouted to her, then she quickly looked straight ahead. They continued to yell to her, laughing and hanging out their windows over her car. She kept pulling up, trying to get away without escaping into a crush of speeding traffic.

Predator:

That evening, I went to the grocery store, the fanciest one in my little suburban bubble. But it was dark, and when I pulled into the parking spot in a distant part of the lot, I noticed a man sitting alone in the car next to me. I thought, ‘No way. Park somewhere else.’ Then, ‘Grow up. He’s just a man in a car.’ But he was a man sitting alone in a car in a dark parking lot, and when I made eye contact with him . . . he seemed creepy. I moved. (He was probably a saint–waiting to pick up a friend or partner so she wouldn’t have to walk through that same dark parking lot.) Why did I assume predator?