WHY WOULD YOU…?

Here's a question for you…

It's something that's been puzzling me for a few weeks now, and I was wondering whether any of you more worldly-wise folk might be able to shed some light into the darkness over a small matter of parking my car at work.

I am, after all, something of a creature of habit and, after parking my car regularly in bay number six, over by the trees, for the first few months that we were inhabiting the little grey box next to the sewage works, there was a bit of a daytime gale and someone from another office tapped on the door and advised that if any of us were parked near to the trees it might be wise to move it, just in case any large branches were to fall.

And so, in the days when I responded to such things, I shifted my vehicle and found a cosy spot just outside the window of my own office and tucked it in there and, because I am such a creature of habit, that instantly became my parking spot of choice, and I've used it ever since when it's been available, only shifting to another on days when I arrive later than usual and it's been taken, which then leads to me to a sensation of the entire day having a strange sense of "wrongness" about it.

This might just come from the late start, of course, but who really knows when you're dealing with the intricacies of the subconscious mind...?

It's not as if it's a particularly good spot, or anything like that. It's slightly further to carry my stuff than I would really like, the window cleaner regularly asks me to move it so that he can place his ladder there, and the car dismantling place are forever dropping tiny tyre-threatening bits of scrap nearby.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, after I'd returned from my holiday, I arrived at my usual time to find that Captain Hilarious was already hard at work at his financial dealings business, having had an early start and being totally alone in the now unlocked building, and had parked his car in the one place where I usually put mine.

And this is where my question comes in.

Why would you, with an entire car park to choose from, pick the one spot that you know another person has been using for at least three years…?

Is it because you want to play the Alpha male…?

Was it just just Mind games that you felt like playing to mess with my already considerably messed up head…?

Was it just done out of plain ignorance…?

I suspect the first, consider that I'm far too irrelevant for the second, and really couldn't comment on the third because I hardly know you (although you do seem to have made more of a success of your life than I have, so I suspect it's not that).

And, as I mentioned earlier, it's really not as if it's a particularly convenient spot, because, even if I am, after all, merely a creature of habit, it doesn't mean that I like to make life easy for myself, now, does it?

I have asked this question at home, and the response I got was interesting, once we'd got the whole "It's probably nothing" business out of the way.

"What motivates people?" I was asked, and, when I couldn't think of anything, I was told "Sex and Money" which means that, because there's obviously no fiscal advantage in it, perhaps he just wants to park nearer to the lady in the sports car so that he can engineer an "accidental" meeting or twelve and catch her eye.

Not, however, that he appears to need much help in that department, as the shrieks of laughter from "The Girls in the Office" that we hear through the walls whenever he utters a syllable are anything to go by.

In the end, of course, it doesn't really matter. Whenever it happens, I'll just park my car somewhere else. After all there is the entire rest of the car park to choose from...

And a change is as good as a rest they say…

So it might actually do me some good.