I was about to junk this article, but outside the post office someone stepped off the pavement behind my reversing car and I nearly lost it.
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Until recently, my desire to hurt someone has been directed (quite inappropriately of course) to a few people who have caused me significant pain.
I have rejected offers to help me develop the art of forgiveness because I don’t want to forgive them. I don’t believe in it and they don’t deserve it.
What I have worked on, and have mainly achieved, is peace based on acceptance, which is entirely different to turning the other cheek.
Good on me I say. I am older now and my desire to hurt has diminished. Instead, I play the game of revenge as a set piece in my imagination. I have matured.
Sadly, there seem to be many people who seem to invite trouble or want an early death. These people are driving me mad. See above. I am saying all this because the other day, I nearly wiped out a whole large family.
Luckily I was, on that day particularly quick-witted but they came really close to their end.
I was reversing out of a local supermarket carpark and – having checked left and right and behind in my rear view camera – I started to move.
To my horror, I saw a woman carrying a baby running across the rear of my car. She must have exited the supermarket at a run and kept going.
What I didn’t know and couldn’t see were three children following her and the beginning of a huge full trolley being pushed by an older lady.
While I sat in shock, two men sauntering across the back of my car. They also belonged to this group.
Their behaviour gave no warning, they weren't looking around at all and I was shaken.
Later in the day, as I was backing into a main street car park, I copped one of the many other people who dash across the road and run resolutely behind a moving car in order to get to the pavement.
This happens constantly so it is a huge whinge of mine.
Are the people who run behind reversing cars mad?
The worst offenders of course are people who don’t even run, they just step out behind your moving vehicle and just stand there, regardless of every other thing, and wait to cross – leaving the helpless driver not in and not out.
It’s true it can get very busy here, and people sometimes feel desperate in their desire to spend their money in Daylesford.
Sadly, the risks they choose to take may thoughtlessly involve people like myself.
A little fake grateful wave or a “oops” look is no reward for me.
I’m more than happy to stop at the crossing along with a whole street of stationary cars, because that’s orderly and predictable and safe. And as it should be. And then this. Though I’m now scraping the bottom of my Whinge Barrel, there has been a big increase in cars double parking in our main street, waiting for someone in a shop – which of course is the arrogant way to drive another driver mad.
It’s rude, illegal and anti-social, unless it is an emergency.
Often, the driver in said vehicle seems to pass the time on his/her mobile while this family shops and the rest of the world goes to hell.
To these people, these questions. Has someone told you, you don’t own the carpark or the street?
Has someone told you that you are the centre of the universe and therefore protected from tragedy?
And has someone told you that you have a duty of care with children, which includes safety training?
I would be pleased to hear from anyone who has an explanation for this increased rule-breaking behaviour around cars.
I don’t expect anyone to call, of course. I remain terrified.