nags of a similar ilk

So, yeah, Kris and I are here in Santa Barbara with Heather and Andy and his friends Alex and Kirsten (hi, Alex!), to spend the day hopping from wine-tasting room to wine-tasting room, all in the name of celebrating Andy's birthday. I know, I know, you're thinking "Andy Crews?" Normally, sure, but not today. That's a birthday camping dog extravaganza weekend (Want to come? You're invited!). No, today is Santa Barbara wine tasting.

But first, we need to leave the hotel.

And before we leave the hotel, we need to not get hit.

Kris, Andy and I were standing in the parking lot with the tour company driver who would be driving us around town. We were chatting about nothing in particular, but probably something close to how thrilled I was not to be the last person ready, when a woman approached us and asked if we would please move over. I looked up at her, perplexed. She wanted us to move, so that she could pull out of a parking spot two cars away from us?

"I don't want to drive over the curb," she explained.

I looked from her, to her Highlander, back to her, back to her Highlander, and loudly stated, "You want us to move so that you don't have to go over a curb in your HIGHLANDER. Your S-U-V. Your SPORT UTILITY VEHICLE. One DESIGNED to go over rough spots? OHHHKAAAAAY." I gathered my jacket, and stepped over two car lengths, and watched the woman attempt to pull out of the spot. She nearly hit us again, despite our being so far out of the way even the tour driver had to watch in amazement of her inability to manuver her vehicle.

We laughed over the incident, only to nearly be hit by another car who pulled into the parking lot a couple minutes later.

After car number two pulled away, the tour driver commented, "I'm going to stand over here. I don't know if I want to be around people who nearly get run over that much."

Can't say I blame him. We haven't even started drinking. Not the he knows the full story.