People in Parking Lots
He was a 40-something with a shiny silver BMW convertible and teeth that looked like they’d been Photoshopped. He pulled up next to me, locked eyes, and delivered his question like a missile: “Why are you doing this?”
There’s a universal law of road life: If you park anywhere for longer than three minutes—especially near a hardware store—someone will approach you, and they will have questions. Usually, a lot of them.
Take Camp Verde, Arizona. I’d barely gotten my bearings in the parking lot of a hardware store when two women, both with athletic calves and hair that bounced with the kind of optimism I’d left behind at my last oil change, practically skipped up to me.
“We saw you pull in and looked up your website!” chirped one, her white-blonde hair gleaming like a tiny searchlight. “We just followed you on Facebook. We love what you’re doing!”
Her partner, in perfect conversational choreography, jumped in: “You know—women traveling alone—towing things! We were just talking about buying an RV and taking a year off.”
Then came the holy trinity of road-trip interrogation:
- “Is it hard towing?”
- “Aren’t you lonely?”
- “You don’t have a dog—aren’t you worried?”
No, yes, and… are dogs the magic ingredient for worry management? I can learn anything, given enough YouTube and desperation (and if I don’t want to, I’ll hire a guy who does). But these were classic questions, usually served up with a side of confusion about where my man/dog/mystical protector was hiding. Wasn’t I lonely, scared, or about to get kidnapped by a wandering drifter at any moment? How did I know where to go? Wasn’t I, at minimum, supposed to be depressed?
Ladies, it’s not the Oregon Trail. I’m not about to die of dysentery or get eaten by wolves. You can do this solo, with or without a golden retriever or a handy husband. Honestly, I love the freedom: peace, quiet, my choice of museums (zero sports museums, thank you), and the ability to buy questionable tin wall art from the 80s without asking permission or enduring a PowerPoint presentation on depreciation.
Not everyone wants to spend their evenings making awkward small talk around a campfire or evaluating the luster of local rocks, and that’s fine. Some people, I’ve learned, really love their golf resorts and cocktail parties. My ex-husband was one of those: sales exec, BMW, Armani suits, and a fondness for parties where everyone swapped business cards and reality for the night.
Fast forward to Santa Ysabel, where I had my next parking lot inquisition. This time it was a guy—a 40-something with a shiny silver BMW convertible and teeth that looked like they’d been Photoshopped. He pulled up next to me, locked eyes, and delivered his question like a missile: “Why are you doing this?”
One question, zero context, maximum judgment.
From my elevated perch in the SUV, I peeked into his car: passenger seat occupied by a glowing laptop, two cell phones in the console, and, for reasons unknown, a third cell phone in his briefcase. Who needs three phones? Was he running a Fortune 500 company or just really indecisive about his ringtone?
Anyway, I had two answers to his question: the real one, and the polite, public-friendly one.
The real answer? My life had turned into a phone overloaded with pointless apps—always crashing, rarely useful, and ultimately, boring.
What I said out loud, with a friendly (if slightly smug) smile: “Because my life of things began to bore me.”
Things you own end up owning you.
— Tyler Durden, Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk)
