When we arrived at the hire car company in Perth and were filling out the appropriate forms to say that we were aware our insurance policy was null and void if we went off-road, on gravel roads, or if the atmospheric conditions included the presence of oxygen, one of the staff went to give the car a quick wash-down to remove road-grime from the previous rental customer. We should have thought that anyone paid to hire cars would be aware that when washing a car with a blast from a hose, it is usually best to close the vehicle’s doors. However, this was evidently not the case, and the driver’s seat had a large pool of water on it when he’d finished.

We decided at this point that it would be best to look at each day of the holiday and award one person every day with the SPOTD award. This award would be given to those members of society we encountered that failed to display intelligence in either their actions, words, or both. This man had taken the award within thirty five minutes of our arrival, so he set the standard early.

Challenging the rental car attendant for stupidity was the person behind the pricing policy of RAC maps. The Royal Automobile Club (RAC) of Western Australia is the equivalent of the RACV (for the benefit of those in Victoria) or AAA (for the benefit of those in North America). Road maps published by the RAC are available for $1.50 from RACV offices, and we had purchased one to help us plan our trip before we left. However, we decided to leave that map behind as our “thing we forgot to pack”, so had to buy another one over there. The same map, purchased in the state of publication, was $3.00 from the RAC offices or $6.00 from the WA Tourism Centre. How it could be produced, shipped across the country and sold for half the price in Victoria is beyond us, and we began to get concerned about the number of people that might be eligible for the SPOTD award.

Categories: SPOTD