Coming to a carpark near you

Carpark crisisThis is shooting myself in the foot a bit, but readers averse to moral tirades should probably look away now. I'm about to come over all sanctimonious and butter-wouldn't-melt. This could get ugly.

I'm getting worried about civilisation. Methinks we are on a slope so slippery that not even a suburban Range Rover could climb it.

I reckon most of the ills of this world have their roots in selfishness. And it's not just the big grand acts of selfishness, such as invading countries or launching violent religious crusades. The little ones count too.

Take parking, for example.

Inconsiderate parking is a blatant two fingers to humanity. There's no better way to say you don't give a flying ferret about anyone but yourself than to abandon your car in the middle of the road, hazard lights a-flashing, as you pop into the shops.

How do you know your delaying of other motorists won't destroy their lives? How about Jane in the Mini who will now be late for her interview for the once-in-a-lifetime job that would have finally got her out of the crushing debt that has riddled her with suicidal thoughts? How do you know you're not preventing Joe in the Mondeo from getting home in time to catch his fiancée in bed with the local TD, thus dooming him to plough headlong into a sham of a marriage? Didn't think about that, did you? But you don't care. You're all right.

Then there are carparks. I'll not bore you again with my oft-repeated view of those breaking the sacred taboo of parking in disabled spaces when they are not entitled to. Suffice to say, it's dimmer than a mole's bedroom.

My local supermarket recently installed a field of new parent-and-child spaces. Blue asphalt, so they are. Couldn't be more obvious if they were lit up in neon and guarded by a band of bleached gorillas. Mrs Emissions, with our offspring Reduced and Turbo in tow, was in said carpark recently. What whizzed into one of these parental sanctuaries, but a Garda squad car. Out hopped one of each sex of the species. Nary a chiseller in sight. Unless they were planning to arrest a Fagin-esque gang of pre-pubescent shoplifters, they'd no right parking where they did. Did they care? Evidently not. And these fine, considerate folk are our thin blue line between peace and anarchy?

Then there was the woman that set my teeth so on edge I've bitten through my jaw. Same carpark. Similar scenario. Brand-new Merc plonked in the parent-and-child zone. No sign of a childseat. "Have you left something behind?" said I, mock-quizzically, to the owner as she returned, alone, to her car. No idea if she had kids or not. Although her figure would suggest she'd had at least 30.

"What do you mean?" said she, an ogress with a Brown Thomas store card, trying to look down her nose at me even though I towered a good nine inches above her.

"Your children, of course."

She instantly twigged. Guilt flooded her brow. She was busted. So she responded in the only way her type know how. She told me to eff off.

This woman, the gardaí and their ilk are why I'm worried. Sociopaths one and all.

You may think I'm overreacting. A few self-important numbskulls cannot sway the habits of a planet, can they? Perhaps not. But I know from bitter experience the pernicious effects of the bad apple, how just one can spread like a cancer, polluting all in its wake. Hitler was but one man, after all.

When behaviour like that of the above gobdaws is ignored, condoned, or, worse still, copied, we as a society will find ourselves in serious trouble. The fall of the Roman Empire will look like a picnic in the park in comparison.

I fear for my children, I really do.

If you don't mind, I'll be off now. My high horse needs feeding.