I’m the first to confess I get a bit het up behind the wheel of my car and choose to release this tension by muttering darkly at anyone or thing that dares cross my path. In spite of this vehicular bile, though, I am actually quite a considerate driver.
I’m definitely considerate when it comes to parking my little silver chariot, making sure I leave any cars near mine enough room to manouevre and get out of their parking space rather than causing drivers to sit frustrated and unable to move, waiting to be released from their parking prison.
If the other people who park near my office were as considerate, my weekday mornings would be much less stress-inducing. It drives me to potty-mouthed distraction when I see how badly they park, inconsiderately dumping their cars before walking the two minutes into the office. It grinds my gears to such an extent that it regularly leaves me teetering on the brink of becoming one of those women who leave expletive-soaked notes written in eyeliner on people’s windscreens.
Adding insult to injury, it’s not even primarily the staff members where I work who park like imbeciles; it’s the students who can’t be bothered to walk the mile from the local student ghetto to their lectures and so jettison their shiny new cars and strut off in their ubiquitous Ugg boots and messy hair (male and female) to spend an hour asleep at the back of a lecture theatre.
There are, of course, other spaces to be had, spaces that are just as good as the ones closer, but sadly they lie a half an hour’s walk away from the office and, when it’s raining, freezing and pitch black, the last thing I want to do is schlep through the rain when, actually, if people were more thoughtful there would be room for everyone in the cushty spaces close to the office.
I can’t see an end in sight because every morning I clamber out of my car and imagine a world in which I could get some little business cards printed up that say this: “Look, dickwad, park more prettily so we can fit more cars here.” And I’d slip one under the windscreen wiper of every offending car. I’ve got it all thought out, and would even leave one on my own car so that nobody would go postal and smash my windscreen with a bottle of de-icer, a Mika CD or some other car-based detritus.
Unfortunately I think that would tip me over from Grumpy Young Woman territory into the realm of Neighbourhood Mentalist and so, sadly, my little dickwad business cards will remain a fond product of my imagination. Read more by Alice.
