Went to the dog park yesterday, same as always. It's been a busy week there — a film crew's been shooting in the park, which is public, and they'd taken up about two-thirds of the parking for it. Still, there are designated spots set aside for people actually visiting the dog park, and I went a little earlier than usual since I had somewhere to be later.
As I was pulling in, I saw open spots in the visitor area and started heading toward them. An older man walked up to my window and asked, "Are you here for the lunch?" I said no — turns out there was a lunch event at the Senior Center in the park that day, nothing to do with the film crew. I only found that out afterward.
He told me there was no parking because of the filming, and I needed to park somewhere else. I told him there were designated spots for dog park visitors. He said there weren't — no more parking there, park elsewhere. I'd already seen open spots with my own eyes, so I said so, and started driving toward them anyway.
That's when he raised it to, "Sir, there is no parking right there. If you start driving, I will call the police."
Honestly, my first thought was just — again? This is the third time in a week I've had almost this exact conversation with someone whose job seems to be standing in a parking lot telling people no, without ever checking whether "no" was actually true.
So I said, "Go ahead, call the police. That's probably better anyway." He escalated, raised his voice, said something I don't fully remember. I yelled back. Then he told me his age — old enough, in his mind, that it should've bought him automatic respect, no matter what he was actually saying.
I just went — huh? Because is that supposed to mean he's right? He never checked whether the spot existed. He just decided it didn't, and in his head, that decision became fact. Age isn't an argument. Being older doesn't make you correct, and it doesn't buy you automatic respect. Respect is something people earn through what they actually do, not the number of years they've been alive. If you're wrong, you're wrong — period. And if you keep pushing on being wrong, don't be surprised when you get pushed back.
We went back and forth for about a minute. Someone else came over and calmed him down, and he left. He never called the police.
What sits with me more than the argument itself is the pattern. Three times in one week, at the same park, different people, same shape of interaction: someone posted at an entrance whose entire job seems to be saying no and telling people what to do, without ever actually looking at what's in front of them. If you can't be bothered to check the thing you're gatekeeping, you're not doing the job — you're just occupying the space where the job should be happening. And now I have to spend my own energy correcting something that didn't need to be wrong in the first place.
There are plenty of good, thoughtful people out there too — the kind who spot a potential problem before it happens and just quietly solve it, which is probably exactly why you don't notice them. They don't make a scene, so they don't stick in your memory the way this does. But three of these in a week is enough to make you notice a pattern instead of a coincidence.
Mahalo for reading.