Facebook post blisters person who left nasty note on veteran's car
Technically Incorrect: A person leaves a note on a car telling a woman not to park in a spot reserved for veterans. The woman is an eight-year veteran of the Navy.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
The note in question.
Have you ever found a note -- a note written by some outraged soul -- on your car?
How often is that soul right? How often do you suspect that soul is just someone who enjoys outrage?
Rebecca Landis Hayes says she received such a note while shopping at the Coddle Creek Shopping Center in Concord, North Carolina.
She posted it to her Facebook page, because it outraged her.
"This parking is for veterans, lady," the note read. "Learn to read & have some respect."
Naturally, the note was unsigned, as such notes so often are. Note-leavers are very much like online commenters.
They cut. Then they run.
So Hayes took to Facebook in order to reply. She began with contrition.
To the person who left this note on my windshield today at the Coddle Creek Harris Teeter in Concord, NC: I know I parked in one of the Veteran Parking spaces today, it was hot. I had been in and out of my car several times already this afternoon, and I was only going to be a minute. Besides, the parking lot was full, so I just did it. It was the first time, and I won't do it again. I'm sorry...
Sometimes we do things that we regret. We stay for 30 minutes in a 20-minute space, hoping we won't get caught. But we don't apologize for it on Facebook.
Hayes continued with her apology:
I'm sorry that you can't see my eight years of service in the United Sates Navy. I'm sorry that your narrow misogynistic world view can't conceive of the fact that there are female Veterans. I'm sorry that I have to explain myself to people like you. Mostly, I'm sorry that we didn't get a chance to have this conversation face to face, and that you didn't have the integrity and intestinal fortitude to identify yourself, qualities the military emphasizes.
Which leads to one question, I served, did you?
I wonder who left the note. I wonder if he -- and you know it's a "he" from the language -- has contacted her.
Hayes didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. However, she told WBTV that she cried when she read the note.
She said she hardly ever used the space. It is one of two at the shopping center. Both were empty, she said. She was dressed in business casual. The note-leaver clearly couldn't imagine that someone like that could be a veteran.
Her Facebook post has now been shared more than 1,000 times. Perhaps hers are just words in the wind.
Unless, of course, the poster with the courage to leave the note now sees the publicity it has garnered and has the courage to apologize.