Is This Maury or a Walmart Parking Lot?
San Diego, California
Before my road trip last year, I read the book Are You an Earth Angel by Tanya Carroll Richardson.
To sum It up, yes, I am. Thanks Tanya.
Then I kept seeing signs telling me I’m an angel. Like when Hot Aries #1 gifted me a bracelet that said “angel” at a music festival in Phoenix. And like the following night when I had an interesting interaction with a college student in a Walmart parking lot.
It’s a late Sunday night
I’ve finally arrived in San Diego after my five-hour drive from Phoenix, and I need to pee.
I’m on the edge of town, and I’m desperate.
Living out of my car has humbled my expectations of public restrooms. I’m grateful if I find a locking door and a flushing toilet. Toilet paper and cleanliness are bonuses.
I search google maps for the closest option and drive a few minutes to Walmart. As I’m walking back to my car after the restroom, I feel someone’s eyes on me. A tall man walking down the next row in the parking lot keeps glancing my way. He could be checking me out, or he could be watching to see which car I get into. It’s hard to say. I don’t take any chances and slow down to trail behind him, but he’s walking so slow it feels like a crawl to my car.
I see a young woman leaning on the trunk of her car, laughing while looking at her phone. Perfect. A decoy while I wait for the man to drive away.
I walk up to the girl, and before I can even explain why I’ve stopped to talk to her, she cuts me off and says,
I’m so happy you’re here. I really need someone to talk to.
And then she spills the tea…
Earlier while the girl (let’s call her Crazy Girl or CG for short) was in the store with her boyfriend, she gets a text from a “friend”. A neighbor that she’s gotten close to these past few months.
The text is actually a group chat between the three of them: CG, her boyfriend, and the neighbor. And the text is actually a swarm of messages. All the messages between the neighbor and the boyfriend proving that they’ve been hooking up. And the neighbor knows the two are out together when she sends them.
My jaw drops. That’s bold.
I ask CG how the confrontation went between her and her boyfriend, and you won’t believe this… he denied everything. The boyfriend didn’t even see the messages until CG told him to check his phone.
So he checks his phone, his face goes cold, showing the true answer in his face, and he still chooses to deny everything.
Now, CG and I are chatting in the parking lot while he’s supposedly in the restroom.
It’s been at least ten minutes. No man takes that long in a Walmart restroom. I go into mom-mode and ask how she got here and if she has a way to get home without him if she needs to.
Apparently, they walked to Walmart, and she’s been leaning on a stranger’s car this entire time. A stranger who comes up to us with her kids and gives us a dirty look.
We move over so CG can lean on the next car, and the stranger drives away.
Then CG tells me more
She tells me about how she felt something was off and how she asked the neighbor TWICE if there was anything going on. But the neighbor denied it both times.
Then she tells me about her and the boyfriend’s prior relationship drama that ended in a messy breakup…
Because he put her in jail for hitting him with a rock
I look around to remind myself I’m in a Walmart parking lot, not a Maury episode. I’m in shock. I was not expecting this interaction (or any interaction) when I made a pee stop.
Then CG asks if I think she’s crazy for wanting to stay with him.
I try not to call women crazy (she named herself CG for the story) because society calls women crazy enough, but I am concerned.
Concerned that she was laughing when I first saw her since now I know the messages she was looking at. And concerned that she looks like she wants to cry, but with a smile on her face. And the jail part. How hard do you have to hit someone with a rock to go to jail? But I don’t mention any of these.
Instead, I say I’m concerned that she surrounds herself with people who repeatedly lie to her face. If there’s no trust, then what are these relationships based on? I remind her that she deserves better. That she deserves people who respect her and are honest with her. She has too many options to settle for a messy neighbor and a cheating boyfriend at the age of 20.
As I’m finishing voicing my opinion, the boyfriend appears. And (bruh) he’s not even cute. For all this drama I was expecting someone reasonably good looking.
She calls me an Angel and thanks me for listening. We hug multiple times while the boyfriend stands awkwardly in his shame as we say our goodbyes.
And then they walk off together.
I wonder if she ever listened to my advice. Or if she’s back in jail. It’s 50/50.