It was just a couple of weeks ago that a rock pinged off my car as I was parking at the grocery store. I turned in time to see a guy yelling something about "libruls" and waving his fists in my direction; he was being dragged away by a woman who didn’t look happy with his behavior. They disappeared among the cars and I just shook my head, glad that I’d had the windows rolled up.

This afternoon I was putting some groceries into my car when an older woman, whose car was parked a couple spaces away, approached me while pointing at my bumper stickers. She smiled and asked if she could give a hug to a fellow Democrat. “Absolutely!” I said, and she laughed and gave me a squeeze, saying that it was so refreshing to know that she isn’t alone. It was acknowledgement that it’s not easy living in a community that is routinely ruled by Republicans. We chatted a bit, and I gave her some stickers and a couple of pins. When we parted, she returned to her car where she handed one of the pins to her wheelchair bound passenger, and he raised his head and gave me one of the most beautiful smiles I have ever received.

I’ve shared before that when my car was still new it got keyed the length on both sides as objection to my bumper stickers. If the intent was to shut me up, it failed. Since then, I’ve been cursed at and gesticulated at, and have now had a rock thrown at me. But I’ve also had a number of happy parking lot encounters like this afternoon’s.

Before getting into her car, the woman today repeated, “I really like your stickers!” As she said that we heard sirens getting closer, and I said “Sounds like they’re onto us, we’d better hurry!” We both laughed, and drove off smiling, and one of us is already planning more stickers.