I find it hard to believe that in this day and age, there are still incredibly inconsiderate people on the most basic of things around me.
This week alone the entrance to my house had been blocked twice! Yes, the front gate, which opens to my porch where my car is parked, and to my front door. It's really difficult to understand why this happens as there is ample empty space around for them to park their cars properly without needing to inconvenient anyone.
The first was last Friday. We had gone out for an evening walk to a nearby stadium. Upon reaching our home, we saw a car parked in front of my house, which nothing new to us. As we got closer, however, we noticed that a good portion of the boot of the car was actually blocking our gate. Plain inconsideration! The owner of the car didn't even bother to apologize for her selfish and thoughtless action, instead leaving her boyfriend to do it. I failed to see why my father told the guy it was alright. Small thing to him, perhaps.
Today, once again, it happened. We had driven out for dinner. This time, even an idiot could see that one should not be blocking the gate, for we had left the gate wide opened, in anticipation of a heavy downpour. Our gate is not fixed with the auto-gate system. Another self-centered driver had, in full stupidity, just parked her car to block a portion of my gate! My father had to get down from the car, under the drizzle, to push open the gate further in order for me to be able to drive in the car, which in turn, defeated the main purpose of leaving the gate opened in the first place.
Twice in a week was too much for me. Once the car was parked properly, I got down, and went over next door. The driver was just about to come out. I gave her a piece of my mind, albeit the more polite and truncated version than the one raging in my head. She just acknowledged what I said, but didn't apologize. Either that, she was surprised with my outburst. Good thing was that she went out to re-park her car. According to my father, this time she didn't park stupidly.
The thing I could not understand was that why in the world did they think that it was alright to have their cars blocking my gate, even if for an inch when they didn't want to park in front of their boyfriends' house. If they could think that doing so might cause unnecessary hardship to their boyfriends, my neighbours, why couldn't they extend that thought to us, or any other house owner. Furthermore, it wasn't like my house is a holiday home. My parents live here. Which in other words, there are people constantly occupying the house. It's not a vacant or empty house! The weirdest part was most strangers who stopped by to get something from the shophouses opposite almost always made sure their cars weren't blocking any gates!
These incidences were not the first time I had witnessed my parents being put into this situation. And many a times, I had told them to just inform the boys, my neighbours, on the difficulty they faced with such selfish acts. My father, in his usual laidback way, would just brush it off as something minor, while my mother would just grumble under her breath. She had told me before, she had once left a note on the windscreen of one of the cars then blocking the gate. If that was the case, seemed like either they don't understand English, or they are just too arrogant and bold to understand the basic manners of living in a community.
However today, I just could not do nothing about it. Telling it to them nicely was the chosen path today. Unfortunately, if this problem still persists, I guess, I would just need to gate crash one of their motivational business talk session and give a long speech on this. After all, it's just plain courtesy and basic manners to not to block anyone's gate or entrance when you park. You never know when an emergency situation might arise where every few seconds is very precious!
Quoting my mother's phrase, they simply have "No cow-sense!"
