I’m not the kind of guy who goes looking for trouble. I spend my days knee-deep in concrete dust and sawdust, wrangling blueprints and bad weather, trying to get houses built on impossible hills in the Los Angeles heat. My name’s Mason Calhoun, and I’ve been a construction foreman for fifteen years. I’ve dealt with broken deliveries, busted pipes, sunburns that could peel the paint off a truck—and don’t even get me started on subcontractors who disappear on Fridays. But nothing, and I mean nothing, tests your patience like someone messing with your delivery zones.
It was a Thursday, mid-June. You know, the kind of day where the sun hits you so hard by 9 a.m., you’re already drenched in sweat and questioning your life choices. We were building a modern monstrosity for a tech couple on a steep incline in Silver Lake, 250 feet up a hill with no drivable access to the site. That meant every screw, every board, every beam had to be carried by hand from the street below. It was a logistical nightmare, and our only salvation were two clearly marked “No Parking — Construction Deliveries Only” spots we’d secured with the city. Without them, we were toast.
Around 10:45, I got a call from Ray, our lumber truck driver. “Two minutes out,” he said. We’d been waiting on this delivery for three days. It had the engineered wood beams, sheathing, and everything we needed to start framing the roof. Missing that window would set us back a week.
I power-walked down the hill, already mentally preparing to coordinate the offload, when I spotted her—silver SUV, idling right in one of our reserved spots like it belonged to her. The other spot was mercifully empty. She wasn’t unloading, wasn’t in distress. Just sitting there, windows up, AC on, tapping away on her phone like the world revolved around her.
I knocked gently on her window. She looked up, visibly annoyed, and rolled it down a sliver. “Yes?”
I kept it polite. “Hey there. We’ve got a delivery truck a minute out and need this spot clear. It’s a construction zone—signs are right there. Could you please move?”
She glanced at the sign like it was the first time she’d ever seen it. Then she huffed. “I’m just waiting for my kid. He’s out in five minutes. Your truck’s not even here.”
“I understand,” I said, keeping my tone even, “but the truck will be here, and he’s got to make a tight turn. It’s safer and faster if both spots are clear.”
She rolled her eyes and said—verbatim—“Take a chill pill, dude. It’s not that deep.”
Now look, I’ve been called worse. But something about the way she said it, that condescending tone, flipped a switch in me. I nodded, turned around to check on the delivery, and there it was—Ray’s truck, rumbling around the corner like an 18-wheeled savior.
I turned back to the SUV, waved at her, and tried one more time. “Here he is. Could you please move now?”
She rolled down the window a little more and said, louder this time: “Can’t you guys just unload around me? Jesus, it’s not that hard.”
It was like she had thrown a match into a powder keg of pent-up frustration. But instead of blowing up, I smiled. A real smile. The kind you give when a plan has started to form.
“You got it,” I said, and walked straight to Ray.
I told him the situation. Ray, a Vietnam vet turned long-haul lumber driver, grinned like I’d handed him a cold beer. “Let’s make it tight,” he said.
We backed his truck into the one open spot, leaving about 14 inches between the rear end of his trailer and her bumper. Then I called over the crew—all seven of my guys—and we got to work unloading around her.
By that, I mean we made it the most inconveniently efficient operation she’d ever seen.
We set up sawhorses and stacks of lumber right beside and behind her vehicle. Walked heavy beams directly in front of her hood. At one point, one of the guys had to squat down and slide a 16-foot LVL beam under her rearview mirror to make the angle work. She honked. We waved.
She tried to roll down her window again, shouting, “You’re blocking me in!”
I shrugged. “We’re unloading around you. Just like you asked.”
Ten minutes passed. No sign of her kid. She kept fidgeting behind the wheel, trying to inch forward, but the site was so busy, she couldn’t safely move without running over someone’s foot—or maybe her own ego.
Fifteen minutes in, she got out of the car and stormed over to me, red-faced. “This is harassment. I’m calling the police.”
“Please do,” I said, holding up the permit showing we were legally entitled to the space. “They’ll confirm it’s a construction zone, and your car is illegally parked.”
She faltered. Looked at the sign again. Then at the growing pile of materials boxing her in.
Right then, a group of moms walked by from the school down the block—probably other parents picking up their kids. One of them raised her eyebrows at the chaos and called out, “Everything okay, Kendra?”
So her name was Kendra.
Kendra pasted on a fake smile and replied, “Oh, just a little misunderstanding with the workers.”
“Looks like you’re the misunderstanding,” the other mom muttered, loud enough for me to hear.
By the time her kid finally showed up, we were wrapping up the unload. Kendra tried to leave, but by then Ray had parked the dolly lift behind her and gone off for a break. My crew “just so happened” to be carrying sheets of OSB in front of her vehicle again and again. She honked twice. No one flinched.
Another ten minutes ticked by before she finally got a clean enough path to ease her SUV out of the spot. She didn’t look at me as she drove off—just hit the gas and disappeared around the corner, leaving a lovely black skid on the pavement.
Ray came back, saw the empty spot, and just shook his head. “People are wild.”
I clapped him on the back. “At least we got the delivery done.”
And we did. On time. No injuries, no missing pieces, and—most importantly—a team that had each other’s backs.
Later that afternoon, as we finally started framing the roof, one of the younger guys—Jason, barely 22—asked me, “You ever think about just towing people like that?”
I smiled. “Towing’s a last resort. Teaching someone a lesson they’ll remember? That’s more satisfying.”
And that’s the thing. You don’t need to yell, threaten, or escalate. Sometimes, the best revenge is just doing your job so well that the person trying to mess it up ends up embarrassing themselves.
So what would you have done? Would you have called a tow truck, waited it out, or found a creative way to make your point?
If this gave you a smile—or reminded you of your own workday wins—go ahead and like or share it. You never know who might need the laugh.
