Live Each Day With Courage

In case you missed it, on Tuesday I posted the Code of the West, which were ten points of frontier logic that can easily be applied to today.

I decided to assign myself (and anyone else who would like to attempt it) the task of telling a story for each point, one per day. Today's post is #1: Live each day with courage.

This is probably the hardest one for me because I do not consider myself a courageous person whatsoever. Some days I'm too scared to even look at my bank account! I've never bungee jumped, went skydiving or hang gliding. I don't even like rollar coasters. My ex-grandmother-in-law (got that?) said I was brave when I flew to Korea by myself, but that was something I felt I had to do and it never even occurred to me to be scared to do it, so I don't count that as courageous, either.

But, as you know, sometimes it's the small triumphs in life that make a big difference. Or a small difference. Or at least give ya something to look back on and chuckle. This story fits into that last category.

In Kansas City (specifically Overland Park, Kansas) there is a decent-sized mall called the Oak Park Mall. Because it's centrally located it can get pretty busy. This usually large crowd quadruples in size during the Christmas shopping season, and it was one year during this time that my sister and I decided to go shopping at Oak Park Mall.

At that time it was very hard to find a parking place. It was nothing like the picture above. Imagine this picture with a sea of cars. Yes, a sea. Not the Marmara. More like the Caspian, or perhaps the Arabian. Ah yes, the Caspian, since we're land-locked. This is Kansas afterall.

Now I'm not the type of person who has to have a close parking place. I enjoy walking, so I usually zip right into some empty space at the end of a row and trek on in. However, during Christmas season in Overland Park you really don't get a choice. There aren't any spaces even at the end of the rows, so I drove, with my sister sitting shotgun, up and down the rows hoping there would be one empty space somewhere.

We were both craning our necks, looking every which way when I suddenly spotted a space and zipped my little Rav4 right in there. We were delighted to finally have found a place, chuckled to ourselves and got out of the car.

Suddenly I hear someone yell at me. I turned around and there was a blonde older lady in a Lexus with a passenger I couldn't see very well. She yelled at me again, "Why did you take my parking place?!"

Me: "Sorry, I didn't know it was yours."

Her: "Didn't you see me waiting for it?"

Me: "No, I'm sorry, I didn't see you at all. Would you like your space back?"

Her: "What?" (flustered)

Me: "Just wait right here. I'll back out and you can have your space."

Her: speeds away in a huff

My sister was flabbergasted. She didn't expect that out of me at all. I told her long ago, in High School debate, I learned that sometimes the best way to beat someone looking for an argument is to refuse to argue with them.

My gut wanted me to just ignore her and keep walking, but on that day, I summoned the tiny bit of courage the man from Oz had bestowed upon me as part of my Kansas birthright and I turned the tables on the Wicked Witch in the Lexus.