PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Onlookers at the Plaza Shopping Center have concluded that because he’s driving a Hummer, the man who took up two spaces must be ex-military.
“I wanted to tell the guy that he was an asshole for parking in a handicapped spot, but seeing as he was driving a vehicle modelled on the military-use Humvee, I thought better of it,” said Jake Jimenez, who was loading bags of dog food from Petco when the red Hummer H1 appeared near his puny 2006 Honda Civic. “The only dudes with the balls to drive something like that in civilian life are those who have witnessed war firsthand, killed people and stuff like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was special forces.”
Lorna Spitzer, who was picking up shirts from the dry cleaner’s, says that she also observed the man — who appeared to be around the age of 40 or 45 — speeding through the parking lot in the four-ton Hummer before recklessly backing into two spaces near the Rite Aid.
“He was dressed in a pink polo shirt and was sporting a very even tan, but that’s probably because he just finished a six-month covert mission in Yemen, and his eyes got damaged by the sandstorms so he’s totally colorblind,” she said, not remarking on the golf clubs in the passenger seat. “Heck, if I spent half a year in a war zone, my life dependent on an armored all-terrain vehicle equipped with a turret-mounted .50 caliber machine gun, I’d also want to drive a vehicle as close to that as possible when I got back to the U.S — even if it cost me 100 grand.”
After emerging from the drugstore with a carton of menthol cigarettes and an Arizona Iced Tea, the man was observed leaping back into the Hummer and blasting Nickelback’s “Someday,” which onlookers speculated was a sign that he also fought in Iraq sometime around the song’s release in 2003.