So, on our way to a family vacation in Yosemite, we stopped at a rest stop to pee and feed the baby. Kristin was nursing in the car in a fairly sparsly populated lot as I walked back from the bathroom. One of those extended-cab pickup trucks had parked right next to us (there was no shortage of empty lot; I think cars have a certain gravity that compels them to park in clumps), which wouldn’t have really mattered except that the driver had left the engine running when he went for his own pee. It was a diesel and spewing foulness all around us; Kristin, nursing, had the windows open, as it was a hot day.
There were three or four adults left in the truck. (As an aside, what’s the point of an extended-cab pickup truck? You can’t really haul anything in it…) As Kristin staggered out of the smoke with an upset, interrupted baby, I mimed “turning off the ignition” to the woman in the passenger seat, who shook her head and rolled down her window. I went around to her side and asked politely (honestly, I’m a pretty courteous guy) if she wouldn’t mind turning off her engine, since we had a baby in the car.
“We do, too,” she snarled, gesturing at a car seat in the back and rolling up the window half way. I could feel a blast of Legionnaire’s-disease-cold-air coming out that gap, and I couldn’t help hoping that they’d bundled their poor infant pretty well as I explained that their exhaust fumes were making it difficult for us to breathe, nevermind what might do to our baby.
“I don’t care,” she said and rolled the window the rest of the way up. I thought of all sorts of comebacks—Christian charity came to mind, since they had a crucifix dangling from the rearview, or even a simple “Well, I never!” But I couldn’t, of course, because the window was closed.
I did not feel content, not at all. I felt plain old angry, the more so because the peeing driver returned and they drove off. Could the baby not stand an a/c interruption of five minutes? With the windows up, would they even have noticed a temperature change? (To his credit, the driver seemed to realize the situation when he returned and, with his eyes, at least, seemed to apologize for not having realized we were next to him. I suppose I should pity that, whoever he is - husband, brother, father - he will be with that woman on the passenger seat for at least some fraction of his whole life, and I got out of it after five minutes.)
I keep coming back to this incident in my mind, though, and wondering where I went wrong. I certainly wasn’t content then.
I’m cheered, though, that writing this has made me feel more content now. A bit after the fact, perhaps, but content.
