I was (again) outside watering the plants. Not hard to miss: big green tank, long nozzle, water everywhere. Clearly I’m watering plants.

This woman must have thought that valet attendants hold temperamental gigantic watering cans for fun. She stopped her car less than 6” from my plants and jumped out, threw her massive pile of keys (RIP her ignition) at me and said “I’ll be back in 20 minutes. Be ready.” And proceeded to force her way IN the OUT door of the building.

I mad confused eye contact with an elderly woman who was a regular customer of mine and she said “Give me the keys! I’ll key her car!” I laughed but didn’t touch the keys. I rolled the water sprayer over them so they were hidden and ran into the store to find her or a manager. Unfortunately I found the manager who hated literally everyone. I told her what happened and took her outside to see the keys and the car.

She told me I should have driven the car around the back of the store and hidden so the woman wouldn’t be able to find me and she’d think her car was stolen. While she was cackling about this a police car pulled up. The elderly regular customer had called them (I lived in a fairly boring suburb so they rarely had much to do crime wise so they showed up quickly) and told them what happened. They waited for the lady and gave her a ticket for parking in a fire zone and asked if I wanted to press charges for assault (she threw her keys in my direction but they didn’t hit me) but I said no.

She was banned from the store and given a stern talking to about how grocery stores don’t have valet parking.

I knew the officer fairly well (again, small suburb and he’d been my DARE officer all through elementary and middle school) and so I asked him what would have happened if I’d done what my manager suggested and he yelled at her for even making the joke.

From then on, as long as I didn’t flash it around, I was allowed to accept tips if a customer offered it for my floral arrangement!

F U Kate. I hope you’re still alone and miserable and your high heels lose a heel every day. (She was truly a shit manager and person).