A trip to Lulu on a bright, hot Friday morning got the anger sharks swimming in my head. The throng of people inside was OK, but the parking lot was what set me over the edge. In Oman, we seem to have a tradition of placing our shopping carts/trolleys behind other peoples' cars so they have to move your cart and theirs to pull their car out. Well, this art form is being taken to new heights of breathtaking arrogance and self-centered-ness. There were, no kidding, clumps of 15 to 20 carts stacked strategically behind a few cars out of every row near the store. So the poor bastard whose car the cart stack is centered on will have about 20 minutes of clearing carts in 110 degree weather with over 80 percent humidity before he or she can pull out.
I saw one person in the act, an Indian lady (I'm sure all races and creeds are well-represented in this act so don't get offended), shoving a cart into the stack. I stopped my car and asked why she thought it was OK to put her cart behind someone else's car. In typical logic, she got mad at me and said it wasn't her cart. Ok, so someone put their cart behind her car, so she fixed it, not by putting it somewhere between cars or in the lane where carts can be put without blocking anyone, but by screwing someone else over (the guy with 15 carts behind his car already). Now, I'm sure she was astounded that I stopped to say something, because no one does that. But, in typical fashion, the guy behind me started honking about 2 seconds after I stopped because its OK to be a total confrontational ass when you are surrounded by metal.
I would give a month's pay to see some young, gym rat, Omani guy with biceps the size of my thighs catch someone in the act and then throw the cart through the offender's back window. A few random acts of confrontational kindness like this would go a long way toward making people think twice before inconveniencing someone else with their cart. Now taking a step back from anger shark fantasy land, next time you see someone do this, try something like kindly asking them not to inconvenience others, or simply pushing the cart out of the way to set the example. If you are someone who does this, take a second out of your narrow, self-centered life and think about whether you would like to be the person spending your morning in the heat clearing away 20 carts so you can pull out of the supermarket.
I really just can't understand the mindset and the lack of concern for others that prompts people to inconvenience each other so freely...
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5 comments:
I am so with you on the shopping cart issue. WTF can't anybody push thier goddman carts to the cart corral, or back into the store? I am convinced that You, Me and my mom are the only people in the entire country who return shopping carts to thier designated places.
Another pet peeve of mine is the apparent correlational relationship between the number of digits on an individual's number plate and the number of feet they are willing to walk to get into the store.
Also, I am lovin' the term Anger Sharks. I have those too.
Suburban,
Thank you so much for pushing your cart back to its home. I just can't understand what brings people to shove their cart behind the nearest car. My wife witnessed some poor Indian dude in a company pickup back over a cart some ass put behind his truck. He couldn't see it out of his rearview because it was lower than the tailgate, so he backed over it and the thing got stuck under his truck. I can only imagine the trouble he got in if it damaged the company truck.
With regard to the number plate and walking distance, this is a phenomenon everywhere, but I don't understand the people who would rather drive around in circles for 30 minutes to avoid walking 1 minute. And those are the people who actually wait for an official parking spot. Then there are those who just park in the aisle and block you in. I asked some guy who blocked me in at Jowharat ashShatti why he thought he was more important than everyone else. He was at a loss as to whether to come after me and risk injury or just shut up and drive away. I told him in Arabic to just move his car. The switch into Arabic seemed to drive him over the edge, but he still stayed safely on his side of the car and almost drove off with his coffee still sitting on the roof. I told him he was forgetting his coffee, which drove him even further into a perpexity of inaction. It was beautiful, but ultimately probably fruitless.
And as for anger sharks, I can't claim that one. It comes from "Anger Management," which is not the best movie, but the anger sharks line struck a chord with me.
Love the anger sharks too. What I love even better is the irony with which you construct the blog. As soon as I get done reading "anger sharks," and I'm pictuirng a shopping cart flying through the window of someone's Mercedes, I come across your next entry, "Tranquil Oman!"
Obviously, the Economist Intelligence Unit needs to add "parking lot courtesy level" to their next survey.
I have my own share of complaints living here in Europe, but they are a step ahead in the parking lot. Here, you have to leave a deposit of a euro to get your cart. If you want it back, you have to return your cart. Problem solved.
Today, I had a homeless guy approach me and ask if he could return the cart for me and keep the euro. Sure, I said, that's a good service. So, now they're putting people to work and solving the parking lot issue.
Anon,
One of the chains here, Carrefour, just introduced the coin-activated shopping cart leash here. I haven't been back to that market at peak times recently to see how it was working out. Another problem is that the markets need to put more places in the aisles for people to take their cart back to.
I would be interested to see some sort of EIU index that tracks social norm development. Where are countries on things like not throwing trash on the ground, putting carts in their place, driving courtesy, etc. Oman has put up a bunch of signs about driving saftey and courtesy (in Arabic only) all over the main thoroughfare. I think that only fines and policing will really solve the issue though (i.e. extremely high and well-enforced fines for littering or driving like an ass). The World Bank has developed a Rule of Law index and I guess such things would fit under that.
Augh! Shopping carts, parking, and the Global Peace Index - one set of comments hits all my buttons at once!!!
It's just a fact that the level of public courtesy in Oman is shockingly below that of individual politeness - here we are in this place where everyone mostly tries to be very nice on a one-on-one basis, and when it comes to community responsibility, I feel like I'm back in my old neighborhood in New York: Hell's Kitchen.
My related peeve is that when people aren't abusing shopping carts by leaving them higgledy-piggledy, they're abusing them by pushing in front of the lines - especially if they are an Omani and the bulk of the line is Indian or subcontinental. I have a Chinese-origin friend here who says the hardest part of living in Oman is being treated, day in and day out, like a laborer - even when he's wearing a suit, driving his late-model car, and looking entirely like the Ivy League grad he is.
I've already ranted in other places about the "more important than you" parking phenomenon, which reaches its nadir at Jawharat al-Shatti - parking on pavements, parking on grass, double and triple parking... mind-numbing.
Finally - the Peace Index. Very dodgy research, especially for something associated with The Economist. Lots of outdated indexes and very strange assumptions, to the point I have to wonder if it is in some way more a promotional than a research tool...
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