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Road Trip 2010: Can I Help You?

At one point during my recent road trip, we stopped off in Sioux City, Iowa.  There wasn't anything we really wanted to see or do there, but it wasn't too far out of the way, and we figured we'd check it out.  We were more or less passing through from South Dakota to Nebraska, and we chose to go through this particular city to get there.  I suppose being hungry and wanting some lunch didn't hurt, either.

It was almost a decision we came to regret.  We didn't really know the town, so we just drove through downtown and then a nearby area to find something to eat.  We finally settled on a Mexican place.  It wasn't really a restaurant, because you didn't go inside.  It was like a really big food stall, with some benches outside.  It was pretty deserted when we got there, but we ordered some food and sat down to eat.

Now, there were a few other people around, but they weren't very chatty.  My friend doesn't exactly blend in at a Mexican restaurant, and I'm guessing the other patrons thought we talked funny, what with our West Coast accents.  No one was disrespectful or anything, but we probably got a few stares.  Well, whatever.  Nothing we could do about it.

Anyhow, we finished our meal, and then headed to the parking lot.  We had driven in on one side of the parking lot, but we noticed what looked like another exit on the far side.  There was a truck more or less pointing in that direction, so we figured it was bound to be an exit.  To be safe, though, my friend walked over to get a better look.  He's got pretty good eyesight, so he really only had to walk next to the truck and spend a few moments looking past it to verify that it was, indeed, an exit.

Well, when he got back to the car, the truck came towards us pretty quickly.  Mind you, it had to drive in reverse for a good 20-30 feet to do this.  What's more, it pulled up really close, and it was angled in such a way that we couldn't really pull out of the parking spot.  I wasn't quite sure what to think, but, "what the hell?" was probably somewhere close to the front of my thoughts.  I didn't exactly expect trouble, but I guess I wouldn't have been surprised if that's how it went down.

So, the people in the other truck roll down their window, and we rolled down ours.
Truck: "Can I help you, sir?"
Us: "Oh, no, we were just trying to see if that was an exit"
Truck: "Oh, yeah, sorry."  (truck pulls away, only moves over so there's a clear path to the exit)

Given the lead up to this, that was the last thing I expected.  Not only was the guy not looking for trouble, but he was really polite about the whole thing.  Even more surprising, he apologized for being in the way (he wasn't really), and then he made space so that we could use that exit.  It's almost like we got confronted by the nicest trouble maker ever.

My friend and I just looked at each other for a moment.  The thought, "what the hell?" was definitely at the front of my thoughts by now.  We had somewhere to be, though, so we shrugged it off and continued on our merry way.

In hindsight, I'm half hoping that was someone who would be considered a trouble maker out there.  If that's the worst of society in that state, Iowa's got it pretty good.

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