With the return of school comes ferrying Daughter Number Four to her various extra-curricular activities: a process that involves constant re-scheduling, calling in favours, giving favours and split-second timing.
And on one such a barely-made-it day, Herself had settled down to wait among the other parents: some of them proudly observing their child, some of them nakedly bored and some of them furiously typing into laptops in an attempt to reassure their employers that they were indeed working from home.
One of the venue staff appeared among them and, in a rather embarrassed tone, read out a car registration number and wondered if anyone knew it?
It was Herself’s. She was asked to come outside.
As you may have noticed, even though there are lines painted in carparks, their width can be arbitrary: sometimes so narrow that it seems to require the vehicle to suck in its gut and squash in there. You can be in between the lines, but still uncomfortably close to the next vehicle.
The next vehicle in this case was a small tank with tinted windows. The owner of the tank probably could have squeezed in the driver door. Or gone in the passenger door and climbed across. But instead, she got someone to find Herself so she could say: “Is this a joke?”
It’s difficult to frame an answer to that question. No one ever entered a carpark with the intention of performing some really hilarious parking. Puzzled, Herself didn’t reply, so the women asked again: “Is this a joke?”
It could have been that this woman wasn’t referring to the parking situation at all, but life in general: she was clearly stressed, angry, maybe running late. Perhaps there were a myriad of other difficulties in her life that brought her to conclude that existence is a vast cosmic joke: the inevitable result of late-stage capitalism.
Herself didn’t feel equipped to answer that question either, so she took a deep breath and opted to be all Zen about it.
[ My wife speaks to me from other parts of the house, for reasons that puzzle meOpens in new window ]
She politely told her that she would move her car, and when the woman was entering hers, wished her a good day: which had the added benefit of being just about the most annoying thing you can say to an angry person.
What’s remarkable about this story is how unremarkable it is. Every day, people in this country – one of the most peaceful and prosperous in the world – can become unaccountably furious over seemingly trivial matters. It happens to most of us, occasionally.
I believe that a disproportionate amount of this anger has to do with cars: parking, bad roads, weird traffic systems and other drivers who don’t know how to use roundabouts or think the overtaking lane is for cruising at 60km/hr. Other drivers are universally terrible.
It seems like when we get near or behind the wheel, we go into fight-or-flight mode. Instinctively, we know that we shouldn’t be hurtling along at high speed in flimsy tin boxes. I suspect that a high proportion of drivers are actually terrified of driving, but are scared to admit it, even to themselves. Because it’s not natural. It shreds our nerves, makes us over-react to everything. No wonder so many people get narky. It could also be the case that some people are just jerks.
