The Car Park Notice

Read the monologue below. Identify (a) the single cognitive distortion it shows — or that there is none — and (b) the exact phrase in the monologue that signals it. This is a logic puzzle featuring an invented person; it is not a diagnosis or real-life advice.

The rules

1. You’ll read a short first-person account of an everyday moment. It’s invented — a puzzle, not a real person.
2. At most one cognitive distortion is at work in it. Name it from the menu — or call the text clean. Some days there is nothing to find.
3. Then pick the exact phrase that gives it away — or, if you call it clean, the line most likely to fool a hasty reader.
4. One submission. You can’t change your answer.