During his days patrolling around the car parks of the nation, challenging the unbadged for using, nay STEALING, the parking spaces of the badged, Badgeman encounters great danger. But more than that he encounters greater stupidity. Coincidentally we were both invited to a cocktail reception the other day and I managed, during the course of this event, to speak to him for a short time. The conversation, of course, turned to parking. That very evening I had encountered problems traversing an icy car-park, due to the sheer weight of Prestige Marques that were parked in both badged spaces and obstructive positions. Being privileged to know this innocuous, balding man's secret alter-ego, I found his comments both interesting and enlightening. Basically he repeated, in order of foolishness and self-importance, the top ten excuses the unbadged had given him upon his challenge, and his subtextual analysis of said excuses. In ascending order of outrageous moronicness, I report them below.
10. I am just nipping in for a minute. (i.e. I can justify my inconsiderate behaviour because I don't do it much.)
9. I didn't see the sign. ( I am a liar)
8. (adopting a limp) I left my badge at home. [I am a brazen liar and deserve a punch in the face]
7. Who the hell are you? You can't tell me what to do! [I believe I can bully and threaten my way out of any situation. Supernanny didn't exist when I was a child. I also deserve a punch in the face.]
6. (from a young person) I didn't realise. [I am young, therefore immortal, and cannot connect my own existence to the concept of disability. There was a crippled kid at our school but we never spoke to him. I deserve to have my car vandalised, causing my already huge insurance bill to rise even further.]
5 Sorry, followed by walking away. [I believe that it IS what you say and not what you do that counts. I am totally superficial and arrogant enough to think that you, Badgeman, are stupid. I deserve to come back to find my car has 'accidentally' caught fire]
4. It's night. [Cripples do not go out after dark. Night time is the reserve of 'normal' people. I deserve an ASBO banning me from going out at night, or during the day, for that matter.]
3. I work for the company. [strangely heard twice from different people, one working for Asda - part of the Walmart Family and one working for TESCO. The assumption here is 'I own the car-park and that allows me to suspend all notions of civility. I could use my power to have you banned from my shop. I am completely unaware that I risk prosecution, dismissal from my job, losing everything and becoming destitute if you decided to pursue the matter of my incivility and ignorance.]
2. I can't fit my 4x4 in the narrow spaces [The world would simply have been a better place had I not been born]
1. I have a deaf aunt.[I am prepared to leave you speechless]
With that, The Badged One left us with our Absolut Martinis and prawn vol-au-vents and disappeared into the crowd.
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