People

Sometimes, people can move you to tears with their compassion and their generosity. Then there are those other times where they make you want to weep for an altogether different reason. Their selfishness, ignorance, and arrogance.

I had to go out today. A dream weekend for me is one where I pull up in front of the house on a Friday night and don't have to go out again until Monday morning. Or at the earliest, Sunday night. But this weekend I discovered the nails I'd bought for putting the floorboards back down again were way too big, I was on the verge of running out of filler, and we hadn't bought any snacks with this week's shopping so Friday night had already been a traumatic, snack-free zone and I couldn't face Saturday night being the same. Gritting my teeth, I set off out the door to a series of irksome encounters that proved over and over again how selfish people can be.

It started innocuously enough. The roads around Whalley Range and Chorlton were busy with Saturday afternoon traffic and, as always, heavily parked. Being the patient, considerate chap I am, I spent a lot of time waiting beside a parked car for the oncoming vehicle to come through. I was always taught that it was manners to acknowledge such courtesy with a small wave of the hand, but one after another I received no such acknowledgement. The drivers didn't even nod vaguely in my direction. Or look. Time after time there was no hint of recognition that I had put myself out and waited for them, rather than barging through and forcing them to stop. During the whole journey I didn't receive a single wave.

First stop B&Q, for those smaller nails and that filler. Clearly the Chorlton branch didn't expect to be busy on a Saturday afternoon, as they had only one till operating. One till with a queue of six people. I selected my goods and returned to the till, where the queue had dwindled to four. On the other side of the store a guy shouted over that he was opening another till, whereupon a couple who had been approaching the first till veered off to make use of that one. Not a glance at those of us already queuing. No hint that they might let anyone at the end of our queue precede them in their desperate hurry to pay. As it happened, it made no difference to me. Of the four people in front of me two proved to be together, so by the time I'd have arrived at the newly opened till I would still have been second in the queue. But, you know, it's the principle. The British are supposed to be a nation of queuers and intrinsically understand the rules. Even that bastion of civilisation is being chipped away by the me generation. In more hot-blooded countries people have been killed for queue jumping.

Out in the car park the space I'd parked in had become a drive-through. As I opened the car and deposited my bag on the back seat, another car rounded the corner of the building. He had a choice of a dozen or more spaces in the row in front of me and I'll let you guess which one he chose. Even though he could see I was preparing to leave.

Next stop Morrison's, for the snacks. As I walked along the snack aisle I saw something incongruous among the crisps, Doritos, bombay mix and Twiglets. A joint of beef. Someone had clearly changed their mind, and rather than walk the vast distance of four aisles to return the beef to the chiller cabinet, they had simply dumped it on the nearest shelf. How long would it sit there before being found by a member of staff? And having found it, would they return it to the beef counter? Its sell-by date intact, but having reached room temperature for perhaps several hours, this will be, for someone, one of those cold purchases that inexplicably goes bad long before its due date. Or worse, leads to a case of food poisoning. All because some ignorant sod couldn't be bothered to put it back where they found it.

Finally, leaving Morrison's, I had to back out of my parking space into the main exit lane. A few yards back, an elderly lady waited with her indicator flashing to take my space once I'd vacated it. Did Chorlton's finest shoppers wait patiently behind her for the few seconds it would take me to complete my manoeuvre? On this day of almost complete selfishness and ignorance, I think you can work out the answer. No, they pulled past her, forcing the incoming traffic to stop, and making it extremely difficult for me to see whether or not it was clear to reverse. But they didn't worry about any of that. What's important is what they want. To get out. To get home. There's no-one else who also wants to get out and home. Or at least if there is, they're not as important. They're OTHER people. The ones we don't think about. The ones we don't even look at.