Sticking with the car theme, I found my Stupid Person Of The Day award recipient this time when the cars were not moving. I was on my way home from a morning meeting at Uni, and decided to drop by the local bakery to pick up a loaf of bread for sandwiches. My entire stopping time was going to be less than one minute, but a SPOTD can alter such plans drastically.

I got to the bakery, which is part of a shopping centre, and parked the car in a different position to usual. I often park a little further from the main doors, to get some shade for the car and not allow it to heat up. However, since it was not a blazing sunny day, nor was I going to be long, I decided to just park in the sun in a parking area near the main doors.

My other reason for usually parking a little distance away is that a lot of people do short visits similar to me, and if I can reduce my chances of having my car side-swiped as people pull in or out of the park next to me, I will. Today simply reinforced that I need to never deviate from the practice of parking a little further away.

I parked the car, walked into the bakery, waited for one customer, bought a loaf of bread and walked back the short distance to my car. Only to find someone else parked right next to me. As in RIGHT NEXT TO me. Three inches from my car, to be more precise.

Yes, ignoring those pesky lines on the ground, a silver Magna (again with the bloody Magnas!) had pulled into the parking area so that they could do shopping themselves. My problem was that when they had done so, they’d left their car less than one handspan width from my car, meaning I could not get in the door to leave. The parking bays are quite large in that car park, and they had left their vehicle parked on top of the line, a full 18 inches into my park, such that their driver’s side door was 3 feet from the white line on the other side of the car.

Short of clambering in the passenger side, over the gearstick and crawling around the steering wheel, there was no way to get into my car and drive off. I was as impressed with this as you might imagine.

There are only 5 or 6 shops in the centre, so I stormed back inside and in a loud voice called out that “whoever owns the silver Magna in the car park had better come and shift it because it’s about to be destroyed”. I got lucky - the owner was within earshot inside a nearby fruit shop and came out to see what the problem was. As soon as I was sure they were walking to the car to see the problem, and not just a curious shopper, I followed them back outside.

They walked around the back of the car, then down their driver’s side and looked around to see what impending doom faced it, completely oblivious to the thought process that perhaps the problem was that they were almost touching the car parked next to theirs. Often I have a fairly calm and cutting conversation with my SPOTD’s, but not on this occasion. I despise those members of society that seem to think they have the right to operate a motor vehicle at up to 110kph, yet cannot line up a parking bay at 5kph.

As an aside, I received this attachment via email about three years ago that struck me as humourous. I wish I’d had it printed out and in the glove box to stick to his windscreen when it happened. (Warning : It does contain strong language - if you’re easily offended, don’t click on the image.)

After pointing out that he was rather deficient in the mental processes, and questioning the marital status of his parents at the time of his birth, he looked quite irritated.

“But I am only stopping for five minutes, so I didn’t think it would be a problem.”, he explained, to which I naturally pointed out that I did not care if he was going to be five minutes or five hours - there was no excuse for preventing another person from even getting in their car through his lack of parking ability. He seemed unable to grasp this concept in the slightest, repeating once more that it was not really a problem “because it was only a short visit” and that even if he had not heard me calling out, I “would only have had to wait for another couple of minutes”.

I informed him that he was lucky he had heard me calling out because otherwise I would simply have climbed in the passenger side, maneuvered my car out, then returned to scratch a message in his paint-work with a claw hammer. This did not please him obviously, and he got rather excited at that point, telling me that he would “just leave the bloody car there” and then I’d be stuck.

He then went on to tell me that he could call the police and tell them I threatened his property with a weapon. I responded by agreeing to call the police to sort it out, who would undoubtedly arrive, see my car within the designated parking bay, then see his car illegally double-parked and preventing my departure. The latter, I went on to explain could legally be deemed holding a person against his or her will and therefore I would lay charges against him. And that whole “damage threat” claim was based on a verbal statement, whereas I had the physical evidence of his car less than one handspan distance from my car.

That seemed to focus him a little, and he grumbled a few curses before getting in his car to remedy the situation. I reminded him just before he closed the car door that since I was watching him, and there were other witnesses to the scene now (we’d attracted five or six people since it was taking place so close to the door), and so he’d best take care not to damage my car.

Because of the angle he’d swung in on, he was able to just get out without touching my car. I watched the distance between them like an eagle, and I must admit I did hold my breath when it got down to less than one half of one inch, but they never actually connected. He then pulled forward, and away from my car into a different parking bay so that there was an empty bay between our cars.

He jumped out of the car and exclaimed “I hope you’re happy now, you stupid f***ing bastard!”. I walked up to his car, looked at the new parking arrangements and rightfully pointed out that his driver’s side mirror was actually over the white line on that side of the car, so he was technically still double-parked. His response was to signify his IQ, by raising only one finger, and then he strode off back into the shopping centre.

I could only hope someone decided to park in the bay on his driver’s side and effectively pin him in as well, but I doubt that kind of justice exists.

Categories: SPOTD