I’ve been a construction foreman for over 20 years, and believe me—I’ve seen a lot. I’ve worked in blazing heat, pouring rain, you name it. But nothing—and I mean nothing—prepared me for the mom who rolled up like she owned the street and parked smack in our clearly marked no-parking zone like rules were just… suggestions.
I asked her kindly to move.
Her answer?
“Deal with it.”
I just smiled and said, “Alright.”
Because sometimes, you don’t need to argue. Sometimes, karma takes the wheel.
Let me rewind a bit and tell you exactly how my morning went down—because what happened next was so perfect, I still grin thinking about it.
My name’s Bob. I’m 40 years old and the proud foreman of a construction crew currently working on a monster of a project—building a house halfway up what we’ve jokingly named Mount Hellscape. Okay, it’s not technically a mountain, but when you’re hauling boards, beams, and buckets of nails up a steep, narrow trail in the middle of July, it sure feels like Everest.
We’ve been on this job for weeks now. No paved road, no driveway. Just a winding, dirt footpath about 250 feet uphill, and every piece of material we need? We have to carry it by hand. No joke.
Our one and only break?
Two sacred parking spots at the bottom of the hill. They’re marked with bright red signs:
NO PARKING. TOW AWAY ZONE.
Those spots are a lifeline. It’s where delivery trucks stop. It’s how we stay on schedule.
That morning, I was already sweating through my shirt when my buddy Mike shouted from the scaffolding:
“Bob! Jerry’s on the phone. Says the lumber delivery’s coming early!”
I grabbed my cell and answered. “Jerry, how far out are you?”
“Three minutes tops,” he replied. “Got all the roof trusses and the rest of the load ready to roll.”
“Perfect. I’ll clear the loading zone now. See you in three.”
I shoved the phone in my pocket and headed down the path, wiping sweat off my forehead. As I rounded the last bend, I stopped dead in my tracks.
There it was.
A shiny white SUV. Parked dead center in one of our two spots. Engine running. A woman sat inside, casually texting on her phone like she was parked in her own driveway.
My jaw clenched. I’ve seen this before—parents from the elementary school nearby think it’s okay to “just park for a second.” But we’ve got literal tons of materials arriving, and “just a second” isn’t good enough.
Still, I kept calm. Walked up to her window and smiled.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said politely. “This is a construction loading zone. We’ve got a big delivery arriving in just a few minutes. I’ll need you to move your car.”
She didn’t even look up. Just pressed the window button halfway down and sighed.
“I’ll just be a few minutes,” she said without even glancing at me. “Your truck’s not here yet. Take a chill pill, dude.”
Window back up. Conversation over.
I blinked, stunned for half a second. Then I heard the low rumble of a diesel engine. Jerry’s truck was here.
He came around the corner with a massive flatbed, stacked sky-high with lumber for the roof.
I waved him forward and pointed at the SUV. He pulled up slowly behind her.
I knocked on her window again. It took several knocks before she lowered it.
“WHAT?” she snapped.
“The truck’s here now, ma’am. You need to move. This is a no-parking zone for deliveries.”
She looked past me at Jerry’s truck, rolled her eyes, and said:
“Can’t you just unload around me? Like, seriously. It’s not that hard.”
Window up again.
At that point, I just smiled. “Okay,” I muttered. “We’ll work around you.”
Jerry leaned out of his truck window. “What’s the plan, Bob?”
My grin widened. “She wants us to work around her. So let’s do exactly that.”
Jerry’s eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas. “Say no more.”
“Pull in close,” I said. “As close as legally possible. Let’s box her in—right between your truck and that porta-potty.”
He nodded and maneuvered his truck expertly, squeezing it in so tight that she couldn’t open her driver’s side door at all. On the other side of her SUV? The only working porta-potty on-site. And someone had parked legally in the spot behind it.
She was trapped. Like a bug in a jar.
Jerry laughed. “She’s gonna love this.”
I called parking enforcement to let them know what was up. Officer Martinez said she’d swing by.
Then I shouted up the hill, “Let’s move, boys! Time to unload!”
As we started hauling the lumber, I peeked down and saw her pacing inside the SUV, clearly annoyed. She kept looking at her phone, probably calling someone—or maybe just fuming.
After about twenty minutes, a small boy with a blue backpack came walking down the sidewalk. He knocked on the SUV’s passenger window.
A moment later, the woman awkwardly crawled across her front seats and flopped out of the passenger side like an angry yoga student.
“Mommy, why are you coming out that way?” the kid asked.
“Because these IDIOTS blocked me in!” she hissed, adjusting her fancy blouse and dragging him toward the car.
Then she stormed over to me and Jerry.
“I need to leave NOW!” she snapped. “Move. Your. Truck.”
Jerry didn’t miss a beat.
“Ma’am,” he said calmly, “our company policy says we can’t move the truck until the load is fully unstrapped and unloaded. It’s a safety rule. I’m sure you understand.”
“Screw your policy! I have somewhere to be!” she barked.
I stepped in. “We asked you nicely to move earlier. You told us to ‘work around’ you. So that’s what we’re doing.”
“This is ridiculous! I’m going to report you both!”
Just then, Officer Martinez arrived.
But the woman didn’t notice. She was too busy yelling.
“I swear to God, if you don’t move this truck right now—”
I couldn’t help myself.
“Can’t you just pull out around it?” I asked with a shrug. “It’s not that hard.”
Her eyes went wide. She knew exactly what I was doing. Quoting her own words back at her.
“Screw you!” she spat, and stormed back to her car.
That’s when things got… wild.
She climbed back through the passenger side, fired up the engine, and slammed into reverse.
“Oh no,” Jerry whispered.
The SUV shot backward and crashed straight into our porta-potty.
The poor thing toppled over, burped out a wave of blue goo, and rolled onto its side like it had just passed out.
Then she threw the SUV into drive and tried to gun it up the curb.
She made it halfway before the wheels started spinning and the whole car got stuck—angled like a stranded turtle.
Officer Martinez was already jogging toward her, shouting:
“TURN OFF YOUR ENGINE! NOW!”
She froze. She saw the uniform. And she knew.
“Step out of the vehicle, ma’am,” the officer ordered.
“These men trapped me!” she cried, climbing out the passenger side again.
“Hands where I can see them,” Martinez said.
“My son is in the car!”
“That’s going to be an additional concern,” the officer replied, calling for backup.
Within minutes, she was sitting on the curb in handcuffs. Her attitude? Gone. Her son watched quietly from the back seat, wide-eyed.
“She told us to work around her,” Jerry told Officer Rodriguez when he arrived. “So we did.”
“Then she decided to go off-roading through our porta-potty,” I added.
“I never refused to move!” she shouted. “They never asked me!”
Officer Martinez shook her head.
“Ma’am, they called parking enforcement as soon as you refused. That’s why I’m here.”
Officer Rodriguez wrote something down in his notepad.
“Driving in a no-parking zone. With a suspended license. Child in the car. Reckless operation of a vehicle. Destruction of property… This isn’t going to be a quick fix.”
Just then, an older woman—probably Grandma—showed up and collected the boy. Her expression said it all: This wasn’t her first cleanup mission.
That evening, as the sun dipped low, I sat on a pile of lumber, sipping a cold Coke with the crew.
Jerry laughed. “You should’ve seen her face when you said ‘It’s not that hard.’ Man, I nearly dropped a beam.”
I chuckled. “I almost felt bad. Almost.”
“Don’t,” Jerry said. “Some folks only learn the hard way.”
“Hey, what’s the damage on the porta-potty?” someone asked.
“Getting a new one tomorrow,” I said. “Lucky for her, the old one was due for service anyway.”
The crew laughed. We clinked our cans together.
“To entitled parents everywhere,” Jerry toasted, “May they always get a fresh serving of karma.”
“And may they remember,” I added, “In construction—and in life—the harder you push… the more you get stuck.”
As the sky turned orange and purple, I knew tomorrow would bring more challenges, more hauling, more sweat. But our parking spots? They’d be empty.
And somewhere across town, one very angry mom was learning a hard (and probably expensive) lesson about respect, patience, and parking where you’re supposed to.
Maybe next time… she’ll take the chill pill.
