I am sure there are limits to human stupidity. I just haven’t found those limits yet, it seems. Ducking out to grab some food from the supermarket late last night, I encountered my SPOTD. In what may be a bad sign, I am beginning to find correlations between the people I encounter at supermarkets, and the winner of the SPOTD.

It was pouring rain last night when I went to the supermarket, and as a result, it was rather difficult to see the white lines on the road. I am sure you all know what I am talking about here - when there is a lot of water on the road, those dotted lines just disappear when the only lighting is street lighting. Still, I was on familiar roads and so I knew where the lanes were anyway, and so there were no problems driving.

When I arrived at the supermarket carpark, I decided to park a little closer to the entrance of the store than usual. I typically park my car a couple of aisles away so that people are less likely to park next to my car and then dent my vehicle as they carelessly open their doors. However, last night was 5.4C when I left the flat, it was pouring rain, and was 11:20pm on a Monday night. All of these conditions reduced the number of people that wanted to leave their warm homes and go grocery shopping, so in the carpark that can hold several hundred cars, there were only two other cars parked there. I looked at the number of parks, and thought to myself it was foolish to park in my usual “away from others” parking area, so aimed for one closer to the store entrance.

Due to the pouring rain, I decided to sit in my car for a couple of minutes until it decreased slightly, then opened the door and scurried toward the supermarket entrance. As I got out of my car, I noticed that although I was parked within the parking bay, I had misjudged the parking bay size, and so was not parked centrally. Since I’d not been able to see any white lines at all (carpark had even worse lighting than the roads) when I’d pulled up, I thought I had a few more inches on my right side than I actually did. Note however, that I was still within the bay, but only just. The mirror of my vehicle was above the white dividing line between the next parking bay and mine, but it was not over the line.

I had the chance to move the car, but since I realised this after I’d closed and locked the door, it was still raining heavily, and there were several hundred carparks available for people to use, I figured nobody would park next to me and it would not be a problem. You can see where this is going, I am sure…

After doing my shopping, I noticed that the number of cars in the carpark had increased from three to six. And, of course, one of them was parked right next to me. In fact, so close to me that there were only five inches between vehicles. It was, and this was already causing nasty flashbacks to another SPOTD (13th April 2000), almost physically impossible to get into the vehicle. It was certainly impossible to get in without pushing my door against the side of their car, and so I figured that although they were stupid and deserved it, I would give them a chance to move their car.

I went back inside and got the manager to call out the number plate over the loudspeakers and get the owner to come to the front desk. A minute later, a young lady arrived bearing car keys and asking what the problem was. The manager told her that she’d parked too close to my car and that I was unable to get in. The young lady then turned to me and said in a patronising tone:

SPOTD: “Actually, I think you’ll find the problem is you’ve pulled up over the line into my park”

Now, bear in mind that of several hundred parking bay, she chose to park in a parking bay that was next to a car she felt was over the line. Not behind it. Not two parking bays away from it. Not even in another row. Right next to a car that she was therefore going to inconvenience the driver of the said offending vehicle.

I just looked at her in a somewhat amazed fashion and replied

Me: “Okay, here is how I see it. When I arrived, there were two cars in the carpark. This carpark contains several hundred parking bays. It was pouring rain at the time, so I misjudged the position of my car in the parking bay. However, I only realised this when I got out, and had the choice of staying longer in the rain to unlock my car door, open my car door, get into the car, close the car door, take off the steering wheel lock, start the car, reverse the car, drive forward again slightly to the left, stop the car, refit the steering wheel lock, open the door, lock the door and close the door again. For six inches, I did not think it was worth it to go to all that effort, and let rain into my car twice.”

SPOTD: ”But you’ve pulled up over the line. I could see that as I drove up.”

Okay, so she’s not only stupid, she’s *really* stupid…

Me: “Actually, I noticed when I got out that my mirror was *above* the line, but the remainder of the car is within the parking bay. I agree it is close. I agree it could be better parked. But what I am wondering here is why you’ve chosen to pull up beside me if you knew that was the case. You’ve not only noticed that there was a problem with my parking *before* stopping - you *chose* to park next to my car anyway? I didn’t have to come back in here. I could have gotten in, but not without damaging your car with my door, so you’re lucky I bothered.”

She completely missed my point and brightly smiled that she would go and move the car now anyway. As we walked out of the supermarket to the cars, I pointed out to her the fact that I was within my parking bay. She looked at me, grimaced and just got in the car and moved to another parking bay without another word.

So there you go. Yes, I parked badly within my parking bay, but I still expected some degree of intelligence from the human race. I think that latter expectation was the problem. I do have to wonder though - there are very few people around that would bother to walk back into the store and get the manager to announce the details and have the conversation with the car owner. The average person would just try to get into their car nonetheless, which would have meant pushing it against her vehicle and scratching the paint. Then she would have come out and moaned about the stupidity of people that cannot open car doors without damaging her vehicle when, in fact, it was her that caused the situation to arise.

For her general lack of common sense, I granted her the SPOTD award. I think I might also have to find another way to get groceries. Supermarkets and Trav do not seem to be a good combination…

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Not so much a SPOTD report today, as a Bizarre Incident report. Di finished work early on Saturday night, so we figured we might as well use the time effectively, and go out to dinner, seeing as most weekend nights involve her working late. A good pub meal was what we were after, so we took the car for a spin and drove to Bacchus Marsh.

For those that don’t know, Bacchus Marsh is about 50kms from Melbourne, and is basically a small town of vegetable growers. There is a small amount of tourism feel about the town, on the grounds that there are some people that go there on a Sunday drive and buy vegetables cheaply from the source, but for the most part, it is just a small country town.

We found a pub and ordered our “Roast of the Day” which is the meal we both like to get when we go out to a pub for dinner. After dinner and dessert, we were sitting there quietly chatting when the door opened, and a fellow wearing a battered old Akubra-style hat, and an oilskin overcoat walked in with a couple of neatly-dressed ladies.

Since we were near the doorway where he entered, he caught our attention anyway, but we both were chuckling about it, since it was a novel experience for me to the be the person in the pub when the guy in Akubra and Drizabone walks in. Usually it is me that is dressed in that fashion and gets the stares when I stroll into a place. It was cold outside, so it was not particularly odd clothing for warmth, but there was the whole “it is night time and he is wearing a hat” look from the few other people in the room.

I turned to Di and asked “so, is that what I look like?” to which she responded it was. My personal impression was that he did not look like an idiot, and certainly got my attention when he walked in, but there was a certain presence about him. While some people may think he looked oddly-dressed, I didn’t see anything foolish about it. Truth be told, I liked his battered old hat…*chuckle*

He followed the two girls into the next room where a group of other people were sitting, and just out of sight. Suddenly there was a shriek from the other room and a girl was wearing his hat as he danced over her.

Yep. He was a cowboy strippergram.

Di and I were in hysterics. This was not long after I’d made the comment that he had created a presence in the room, and that it was not a bad thing if people thought the same thing about me. All of a sudden, there was a horrible thought that perhaps people might consider me a strippergram when I walked into a place dressed in my usual attire. Di, through the clever use of one raised eyebrow and a snort of derision, quickly assured me that I was too puny in build and not pretty enough to be a strippergram.

The point of all this is that we were in the middle of a small country town, and the last thing we expected to see was a man gallivanting about in the pub completely starkers. He had danced around for a bit and then we thought he was finished when he reached those little shorts that some men wear as underwear. Very tight-fitting, sort of like hot-pants, but I don’t know the name of them. Then he went to the G-string, which we had believed was the end of the act. We did not expect the final step to full nudity.

I don’t think the girl who was the guest of honour expected it either, judging by her look of terror as it all came off and he suddenly jumped into her lap wearing nothing but a smile.

The last country pub we went to that featured some entertainment we did not expect was in Creswick about a year ago, where a woman arrived and sang country yodel songs to the delight of many patrons. She was apparently someone reasonably well-known in the area for her country singing, but we did not think much of it. Interesting. But not our cup of tea.

Not that the strippergram was our cup of tea either, but as far as unexpected entertainment goes, it was one of the funniest things we’d seen for a while.

Categories: SPOTD
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