But, Hey, I've Had a Hard Day, You Old Fart!

Yesterday, after our shift at the Food Pantry, I was driving my friend Anne home.  She is 81 and very fit, but she usually has trays and other things to carry, so rather than drop her at the corner of her block, I take her all the way to her house.

The problem is this sign at the corner of her street:

It was about 4:30,  and I needed to make a left turn.

Every Monday, I break the law doing this, with the rationale that I'm not using the street as a thoroughfare, but giving a lift to someone who lives on the street.  I'm prepared to tell a cop this if I ever get caught.

But yesterday, a bent, white-haired man yelled at me from his front yard.

Him:  "Can't you read?"

Me (startled and slowing down):  "I'm dropping someone off."

Him:  "Doesn't matter!"

Here I'd spent all afternoon helping to give out food to people, and this man was giving me a hard time about driving Anne, his neighbor, to her house.  I felt like crying.  I muttered a bad word that begins with an "f," which I never do around Anne, because she is very nice and not a Boomer.

She furrowed her brow, not at me but at him.

"That's Jim," she said.  "He's old."  

 "Humph!" I said. 

"You could go back and talk to him," she suggested, as she got out of the car.  "Tell him what you've been doing."

I didn't think telling him what I'd been doing would cut any ice,  plus all I could really think to say to him was, "You're a hostile old fart who needs anger management."

Now I'm sort of afraid of him, mad at him, and ashamed that I broke the law.   Would any amount of explaining on either of our sides (me doing good works, him mad at getting old and infirm, perhaps) do any good? Don't think so.