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…

Categories: SPOTD