‘I parked on public avenue to make fast telephone name – then acquired livid response’

People can get really touchy about parking.

But recently things took a different turn for one woman who opened up on the “disturbing” reaction from a local after simply pulling over on a street to make a phone call.

Taking to Reddit, she recalled being “threatened by a homeowner” in a “pretty side street” after taking the “important call”. She explained: “My car is a normal-looking compact car in good condition, and I am a normal-looking person who does not at all look intimidating.”

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However, the man, who she claims appeared to be in his 70s, approached her after “about five minutes” before knocking on her window and asking if she “had any business” being on the street.

After laughing in response and asking: “Do I look like trouble? I’m driving a Toyota Prius”, she says she was met with a furious response.

She continued: “He said, ‘No, you don’t look like trouble, but here in this neighbourhood we’re a family, and we run people out who aren’t part of the family’.”

And after explaining to him she was simply “taking a call” and “about to look for a coffee shop”, things got even more heated. “Well there aren’t any coffee shops over here,” she says he told her.

The woman said he then “threatened to call the police” after accusing her of “loitering”. She continued: “Throughout this exchange, I was polite, referring to him as sir.

“Eventually, after making it abundantly clear that I was not welcome in his neighbourhood and once again threatening to call the police, he walked away. I wrapped up my call and also drove away, bewildered.

“I had planned on spending some time enjoying the nice day and walking around the downtown that afternoon, but after this exchange I was too weirded out by the unwarranted paranoia of one of its senior residents. As I drove away, my emotions switched from disbelief to anger to pity.”

She added: “I don’t know that man, or what sorts of traumas he may have experienced in his life. But I saw him act absolutely insane to a normal person in a normal car who was doing nothing but quietly sitting and talking on the phone. If that is how he wants to live his life, through a lens of fear, then that’s a real shame.”

Reassuring the Reddit user she had done nothing wrong, another user responded: “Much better to park on a public street to take a phone call than to do it while driving. Even if you were just checking for coffee place, he was way out of line. It’s sad the sis coming to this…”

A second person added: “This man was completely out of line to walk up to someone and tell them to leave. Stupid of him as well in the event someone was there to do harm.”

And a third replied: “Sure, if you had pulled into his driveway, that would be AH territory. But you didn’t do that. You were on the street. That old dude can STFU.”

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