I Met a True Karen Sunday at the Titirangi Gas Station

Jimmy from Titirangi

Happened on Sunday, 13 October.

I had just dropped my son off at a birthday party and needed to gas up prior to heading out for a run with a group of friends a few hours later. I pulled into the gas station in the village at Titirangi. If you aren't familiar with it, there are two pumps. They allow two on the left and two on the right. If you use the left-hand side, you have a bit of a sharp right-hand turn to get out and back onto Titirangi Rd.

I stopped at the front pump on the right-hand side. I shut off the engine, popped the fuel cover, unbuckled, and opened the door. I went to the pay station. Enter Karen.

Karen came up to me and said "You need to move your car back so I can get out when I'm done". I looked at her little car, looked at the amount of room and replied that there was plenty of space. She said, "No, you need to move!". I replied that there was plenty of space.

While I was trying to do the pre-pay, she tried to remove my card from the machine. Rather than smack her, I put my hand in the way so that she couldn't remove my card. She hit my hand, but, since she is about 5' 4, she knew that she was not going to force me to move my hand (Legally, she assaulted me).

I proceeded to process the payment at the pay station to get ready to fill up. Karen then said that I was lucky that her child was in the car. I asked "Or what?". She said "I assumed that you would move". I replied "I assumed you could drive".

She said "Then I'll hit your car". I replied "And I'll take a picture". She then used the F word about eight times - In front of her child. She even said "You don't know who you're F-ing with". (Which made me think that she is a government employee) I said, "I don't care who you are - there's plenty of room".

Once Karen was done fueling up, she pulled around and tried to get as close to my car as possible. She then stopped, opened her door and said "Look, there's not even 20 centimeters on this side!", I stepped to the left and said "And a meter and half on the other side".

I bet she's a single mom. Because there's no way anyone would put up with her after a few weeks.

Oh, little blue car. If you know her, keep your distance - she's unstable. Sure, she could have been having a bad day and was on edge. But it wasn't even 10:30 AM. She didn't need to make her problems my problems.

Incidentally, after she drove off an SUV pulled in to where she had just been. I asked the driver "If he was done fueling before me, would he be able to get around?". He said "Sure, no problem".

Apologies to anyone named Karen.