Of all the articles here questioning with the 'is it just me?' tag, this perhaps is a prime candidate for an affirmative answer. Sorry, but it right grinds my gears, so it does.I'm of the persuasion that I'd prefer to park miles away from the supermarket and endure the walk rather than go through the palaver of squeezing into the driver's seat on my return due to the proximity of the car in the next bay. I've lost count over the years, though, of the times I've left my vehicle in the farthest recess of an empty car park only to come back and find another neatly installed next door ... despite there being hundreds of other vacant bays to choose from!
You see, I kinda thought that car parking spaces would naturally follow the same allocation process as urinal protocol, but my theory is regularly disproven.
The latest example came this week where I witnessed something quite extraordinary while having a sneaky puff outside an almost deserted pub carvery (was £8.99 reduced to £3.99 due to lack of anyone liking pubs anymore).
ASH would have been proud since I barely took a couple of puffs as the scene I'm about to describe unfolded in front of me. The 30+ front of house spaces were empty but for three cars, one of them mine, yet I watched as a Nissan Micra pulled into the car park - painfully slowly I might add - and snugly placed itself right next to mine, having passed a copious array of unoccupied slots in the process.
No, that's not the end of it. The female driver then emerged from the obstruction free driver's door and went round to the passenger side to assist her elderly hubby in exiting the vehicle. He seriously struggled to do so with merely a half-open door to contend with because ... he was on crutches!
The whole process took around five minutes before they were finally able to amble, or hobble in his case, towards the pub entrance where I stood mouth agape.
Now, I'm sure someone must have a better explanation for such self-defeating behaviour, but all I can come up with is that these people must feel that their car will become lonely while they're away, or something.
I mean, how else does one account for it, especially since this example clearly resulted in an own goal for the couple concerned? There must be more to it than plain foolishness, surely.
