...or are people really taking leave of their senses at an alarming rate? Recent events here in the valley seem to indicate a definite departure from--well, common sense--but since both of the following incidents were witnessed by yours truly, maybe it IS me. You be the judge.
So, I pull up to the pump at Cumby's to get some gas. It's not really busy, only two of the pumps are occupied, including mine. I go inside to pay and get the milk and daily whatevers, and when I come out only one pump (out of a possible 6) is occupied, and that would be by me. BUT, while I was inside, a car pulled up behind me to wait. With 5 other possible choices. Okay, maybe he/she is too lazy to pull around and face the other way, but even assuming that to be the case, there are still 2 other pumps open. So I figure, maybe they think I'm all done and going to leave. Still doesn't make much sense to me, but maybe this is the guy's lucky pump or something. I put my whatevers in the car and disengage the nozzle from the pump. I proceed to pump a significant amount of gas which of course takes a significant amount of time, and the person waits until I'm done and during this time NOBODY else comes in to get gas so all the other pumps remain open. Make any sense to you? Maybe he/she wasn't in a hurry, and it's really nobody's business if they didn't mind waiting, but why in the world would you pull up behind the ONLY car at a 6-pump station? Why?
Example #2, even (to me) more baffling. Today I go to my local Chinese restaurant for take-out. It's raining, has been raining heavily for the last hour. The parking lot is packed. Two spaces are available, way on the farthest end of the lot. I'm not fazed, it's only rain and at this point it's not too heavy. What does frost my shorts is the fact that somewhat closer to the building a car has pulled in purposely sideways and is taking up two spaces. Nice car, looks new, out-of-state plates. Two people are in the front seat, apparently sitting there talking. The part that annoys me is that there's an elderly woman walking slowly with a cane, through the rain, from the far end of the parking lot when these two people are sitting there having a discussion that I'm pretty sure could have been accommodated by ONE parking spot. The bitchy part of my brain visualizes me knocking on their window and politely asking them if they're aware that there are, in fact, other people. But the sensible part of my brain counters with the argument that this is how road rage happens and people get shot. Anyway, I go in and get my food. Come out, and the car is still in the two spaces. I get in my car and proceed to back out of my spot into the crowded parking lot, making the 15-point turn now necessary because the aforementioned car has now pulled out and parked IN the lot, so instead of occupying two spaces, they are now blocking them completely, along with a good portion of the space in the middle of the lot. I resist the urge to sit there like a jackass blowing my horn, also the more appealing urge to ram the car out of the way with my bigger one (no road rage here). As I pull by the car to leave, I see that they probably would not have noticed either, because they're now engaged in...well, something other than conversation.
Now I'm FAR from perfect. I do brainless things all the time. But I try not to let anybody else find out about it (some of you, and I can hear you, are laughing hysterically. Shame on you). Not always possible to keep it a secret. Not even
usually possible. But I guess I secretly always assume everybody else has their shit together for the most part, and it always messes me up when I witness something that tells me that the rest of the world is probably just as addled as I am. While this seems like it should be comforting, it's actually a little disturbing. Because I can only too easily imagine the people running my town/police force/country doing things like...oh, losing something you had 30 seconds ago when you have not moved from that spot, and walking out the door without the very thing which precipitated that trip into town in the first place, or forgetting the name of the person to whom you were just introduced almost before the handshake is over, or not being able to decipher ones' own notes a mere two hours after one has written them.
I guess I was hoping it WAS just me.
...don't usually include moving small buildings. Crash (visible supervising from the Crashmobile from a safe distance) decided to buy this shed so he'd have a place to store his Crashmobiles where they'd be easily accessible. The only problem was how to get it to where it needed to be. It was brought to the house on a flatbed, and without a plan past how to get it home, it ended up being dumped on its side in the driveway. Our neighbors, a which include several large men used to lifting heavy objects, offered help but for some reason it was politely declined. I was at work at the time or I might have tended to disagree with that decision. Anyway, several days later we were faced with several engineering/physics problems. How to get the thing righted and moved out of the way? Preston came up with the method you see here, which was working for the moment, but after a couple hours of jacking and pulling with the truck we hadn't gained a whole lot, and with just the two of us we lacked the manpower necessary to make it work.
Our neighbors watched this from their back yard for as long as they could stand it, then came over and said "we're GOING to help you"...and proceeded to accomplish in 5 minutes what we would have taken the rest of the afternoon to do (if at all).
There's a moral to this story, and I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell you what it is.
