Dr Particle - lesson #2 in urban morality

Dear Dr Particle,

I have to tell you about this crazy woman I saw today. I was at the petrol station. I’d filled up my car and gone inside to pay. Then my girlfriend and I went next door to get a double cheeseburger meal.

But when we got back to my car, this woman starts yelling and abusing me because I left my car parked next to the bowser! She points to all the other cars and says, ‘people are waiting’. There were other bowsers.

Why can’t they use one of those?

Annoyed.

Dear Annoyed,

People are so impatient these days. It can’t have been that frustrating for all those other people to be sitting behind idling vehicles when there is an unused pump sitting next to your unoccupied car.

The Double Cheeseburger Meal - Did you eat in or take away? I’m thinking perhaps you ate in - sitting up at the window looking out at the motorists trying to edge their way around your vehicle - trying but ultimately failing to reach the pump your car was parked alongside.

You don’t mention in your letter what your girlfriend ordered. Did she sit next to you enjoying a similar multi-item meal? And then just as you finished your meal, did you go back to the counter and order some kind of dessert – in ice cream perhaps?

You don’t want to eat those in the car.

Yes, the attitudes of the general public astound me. There is no signage that forbids you to park your car next to a petrol pump for any length of time. You might consider leaving it there, taking a bus or train into the city for a nice day out without the hassle and expense of traffic or parking. Petrol stations are secure, well-lit and there is always an attendant.

Or for a quiet afternoon in - plug in your device and watch a movie (or better still – a series) enjoying all the comforts of home. There’s a ready source of snacks, serviced restroom facilities and a rubbish bin conveniently located just outside the window. Of course, you’ll need to keep the engine running to avoid draining the battery which might raise the ire of other customers but the high volume on your system and central locking should prevent their honking of horns and fist-shaking accompanied protests from disturbing you.

I can picture your vehicle now. It’s one of those massive all-terrain 4WD’s with a grille projecting an arm’s length out the front for deflecting native fauna that wander out on to the road threatening to stain your paintwork with their entrails.

It has a collection of faded stickers from tourist landmarks, regional drinking contests and nationalistic pride events that now just read as thinly veiled propaganda. And it has one of those flat rear-screen windows that catch the sun, giving everyone behind you laser eye surgery.

You like to drive fast and loud, changing lanes unnecessarily without indication oblivious to the sound of other vehicles’ brakes because you’re playing bowel- crampingly loud music that is liked by you and maybe eight other people in the universe.

I really hope, at the fast-food place, you left your wrappers on the bench, about two feet from the bins provided, with the pickles stuck on the bench with the tomato sauce acting as an adhesive. And I hope you left pools of condensation water from your frozen drinks ready for the next customer’s shirt sleeve.

And what about rubbish from items you purchased at a previous location? You could leave the jumbo-sized drink cups you have now at your next stop and so on - a sort of trash relay.

My advice to you, Annoyed, is to continue along your well-worn path of total disregard for social norms and consideration for others. Because it takes people like you for the rest of us to know society is functioning normally. As long as someone is behaving like a compete weeny and everybody else acknowledges it, the machine that is social cohesion can continue more or less in forwards motion.

People go out of their way for others every day; help someone change a tyre, carry someone’s shopping to their car, take their neighbour’s dog to the vet – that sort of thing. They do it out of a sense of altruism, because it’s the right thing to do and because they know there is and will always be, a small but significant number of people like you who don’t care about anybody except themselves.

So thank you, Annoyed. You’re doing us a favour.

kind Regards,

Dr Particle.

(Keep an eye out for # 3 in Lessons in Urban Morality.)