What you say as opposed to what you're thinking

[Crackle]

I was just putting some stuff together upstairs to go out when I became aware of a car engine outside the house, so I walked to the window and watched as a woman carefully manouevered her car to park across my driveway.

I was thinking in terms of bemused confusion as I tried to get to grips with why someone would park across what was plainly a driveway with a car in it, not ever being something I would do. Of course instead of verbalising that when she got out the car, I opened the window and said "Excuse me. I'm going out in a minute and I'll need to get out". "Oh, I won't be a minute" she said. So then I was thinking sarcastically, oh well that's OK then, it's perfectly allright to potentially inconvenience someone else for a few minutes for the sake of your own convenience. "Right", I said, "well so long as it is just that, because I need to go in five minutes, thanks". Thanks! Why did I say thanks, you pathetic weed, grow some backbone. I should've told her to move it and park at the top like everyone else, she could do with using some extra calories up anyway. Instead I closed the window, fumed for a moment before casting my mind back to what I was doing.

I'm sure everyone has got some splendid examples of thought opposing words - let's hear what those demons on your shoulder are really saying.

 

[XmisterIS]

My God man! Eat some spinach!!

I would have been out there, on foot and politely insisted that she move her car. In response to, "Oh, I won't be a minute", I would have said, "I understand that and I wonder if you could please park without obstructing my driveway?" If she'd refused to move, I would have cheerily said, "Ah well, no problem, I'll just go and get my camera and take a photo of your car and report you to the local council and the police".

 

[Crackle]

I'm not averse to the approach but she was quite contrite and a bit confused looking, so despite the demons, I moderated it.

Thinking about it, I did once park across someones driveway but it wasn't deliberate.

I was heading off somewhere in an old Commer camper van and knew I was a bit low on petrol but had a garage in mind and thought I'd get there. The fuel gauge along with everything else in the Commer was a bit vague, in-built vagueness. Anyway, pootling down the road it suddenly began choking and coughing and I looked for somewhere to pull off the main road, saw a left turn and swung in into a road with parked cars one side and yellow lines the other. Frantically looked for a space I could use without blocking the whole road as the van gave one last cough and the engine died, saw one and rolled with beautiful precision into the gap. I then noticed I was across a driveway and as my eyes lifted I saw with horror the driveway was the way in and out of the local police station. Panic does not begin to describe my thought process. I couldn't move it out, not even on the starter: Should I go in and tell them, maybe. Then in the mirror behind me my eyes alighted on a petrol station the other side of the dual carriageway. In a shot I was out the van grabbed the can, legged it, filled it up, legged it back, poured it in, leapt in the van, gave it a few turns and miracle of miracles it coughed and started and I pulled out just as a police car came around the corner. I was soaked in sweat so panicked was I, which was a result of the situation, the fact I was a young 17 and the knowledge that my Brother in Law's van, despite being legal would probably not have stood up to to close an inspection by a bunch of peed off coppers.

 

[Globalti]

Ha ha, we used to have an old Perkins diesel Comma van, it broke down regularly on our family trips around France and Spain.

I have only experienced road rage once in my life and that was when I worked in Paris. We used to park in an underground car park, which you accessed by driving across the pavement. In France you Do Not Block entrances to garages and driveways, it's the worst possible sin.

So one day I came shooting up the steep ramp to street level, the steel door already swinging open, to find that some muppet had blocked my access to the avenue by parking in the gap. I stopped on the threshold of the garage door and the door swung shut on my car, scraping down the side as I slipped back a few inches. There I was, trapped halfway across the pavement with the steel door clamped onto the side of the car and pedestrians squeezing past my bonnet. Being a young thrusting executive in a stressful job I hit the horn and sat there absolutely screaming blue murder, blasting the horn, adrenaline belting through the veins and heart rate up at around 180. Nobody came; I reckon that the driver may have seen me exploding with rage and decided not to come out and confront me. I ended up doing a multi-point turn and driving a few yards along the pavement in order to extricate my car, people carried on walking past and nobody seemed bothered. It took me quite a long time to calm down, I think that may have been one of the events that convinced me the job wasn't going very well for me.

 

[tyred]

I'm a disaster for agreeing to things while thinking something totally different. Most recently, last summer while on the Larne to Cairnryan ferry, I was sitting in the "quiet lounge" reading a book and some woman came up to me and informed me that it was her seat and that she always sat there. I meekly moved elsewhere while thinking "why the **** should I do this? She doesn't own the ******* seat." I'm very bad at standing up for myself in those sort of situations.

 

[Night Train]

I hate people who park across my drive. Many of them then visit a neighbour who has ample parking space on their drive! Quite often there is plenty of parking on the road either side of my house and the idiots still stop across my gates when reversing a car's length would have left it clear.

My usual, if the driver is still there, is to march straight out and ask them what I can do for them as they obviously must be coming to see me. If they are not visiting me then then I open my gates, unlock my car and say 'Move it, NOW!' and then start my car up. If they offer excuses of only being a few minutes I start driving at their car and tell them that in a few seconds their car will be moved.
I wouldn't do it though, criminal damage and all that but no one's called my bluff yet.


When I used to have 1946 AEC Matador on the drive I would give the driver one warning and then let the hand brake off on the Materdor and then walk away as it slowley rolled downed the drive unattended. It is amazing how fast stupid people can move their cars in that situation.

Only once I failed to dive in the cab to grab the handbrake at the last moment. The car had moved off but the Matador trundled slowly across the road and demolished the wall around the green opposite.
I rebuilt it pretty quickly before the council found out.

When I come home to find a car (or transit van as on one occasion) across my drive I have no hesitation in putting a rope to it and dragging it out of the way, or double parking it so that their doors are blocked on both sides.

ETA: And, yes, I do own the road outside my house, full width of the house and up to the centre line where the council take over ownership.

 

[rich p]

I think I've have done about the same Cracks. It wasn't worth getting too stressed about - save the red mist for the real ignoramusses. (ignoramae?)

 

[ChrisKH]

Bloke who parks opposite our drive despite our requests not to do it as it makes it difficult to get out. He parks it there every day and works for a neighbour on a self employed basis who I can't stand (four cars on the drive, but he parks two vans and an 18 foot trailer on the road as well). So when a skip lorry came careering down our street and hit the side of his car, his enquiries door to door didn't get much of a response. I did ask him whether he was a) insured and b) insured to drive to /from place of work and not just social, domestic and pleasure purposes and he went away muttering to himself.

 

[Crackle]

I think I've have done about the same Cracks. It wasn't worth getting too stressed about - save the red mist for the real ignoramusses. (ignoramae?)

Aye, I figured the same Rich and it's one of those streets where it is a problem. I knew that before I moved there, a polite word or note normally does the trick.

Just after I'd got the drive done I came back one day to find some fecker had parked across it. I couldn't believe it, two days in and I'm blocked in. Anyway I decided discretion and a cup of tea was a better idea than running my key down the side of the offending vehicle. Just as well, it turned out to be my sister in a friends car who'd nipped off for a coffee when she found I wasn't in. She'd left me a note but in my fume I'd missed it It pays to take a deep breath sometimes.