Corycia

This must happen to other people, or I am singularly unlucky?

Yesterday in Warrington town centre, I went into town and parked in a completely empty car park – I mean, completely empty. Just me. I sauntered up to a space, if sauntering is possible on four wheels, and pulled in. While I was faffing about getting my jacket from the back seat, a woman in a Volvo came up to the same car park level, and proceeded to park right up against my side of the car – so close that I could not open my door. There was no particular reason for her to do this, as I was nowhere near any exit.

I had to move my own car to get out! Of course, this woman looked at me askance as I moved my vehicle away from hers, like I was the idiot. Her inevitably cow-like expression led me to believe there was no hope in engaging her in debate about her future driving choices, so I comforted myself in pigeon-holing her as a typical Volvo driver.

But this isn’t the first time this has happened to me. Oh no. This happens to me a lot, so much so that I’m beginning to wonder if it’s an epidemic, and whether I should consider being inoculated in case I catch this syndrome myself; although I must say that the idea of a cull is more appealing. The best (or worst) example is when Donna and I were visiting Knock Shrine in County Mayo, in Ireland – no, I’m not a card-carrying Catholic, and yes it is a very interesting place for lots of reasons. More on that some other time maybe. We turned up early on a damp weekday, so the car park was empty. I should point out here that whilst Knock is a small village of about 40 houses, the car park will take what looks like 10,000 cars and is about 3 times bigger than the vilage (see Knock from space in Google Earth if you don’t believe me).

So there we are in this vast car park, trundling in to a random space. As I pulled up, I noticed a dot in the far tarmac distance. Quickly exiting our vehicle to prevent being trapped again – I am getting wise to this -  we followed the second car circling in, like a vulture descending onto its prey. After a two minute waltz with an invisible vehicular partner, the Volvo (as it inevitably was) slowed to a crawl, apparently unsure where exactly to cause the most annoyance. And of course, the driver halted right up against the driver’s side door of my car. Only this time, I couldn’t move the car as I was no longer in it. We left this scene of psychological bombing, and returned after our visit to the famous zillion-foot high Knock cross (and of course the blank wall next to it): as you will have guessed, I had to climb across the gearstick to make it behind the steering wheel, an unpleasant experience.

Why is it that women (and it is always women) choose to park right next to me in car parks?