If you are wondering what has happened to my life story, fear not, it will be back very very soon. I was going to unleash the next section tonight, but a) I've not written it yet (I write these things on the fly, I don't have a pre-prepared article to post, it's all raw gold, people) and b) I need to rant.
I don't rant often (who am I kidding, I do it all the time), but when I do, there tends to be a fairly robust amount of swearing. I can't help it, when I become indignant or enraged, I become a bubbling mass of profanity.
So, picture the scene. I've been out in Dunfermline, making my weekly trip to take mother shopping. As I was leaving, I drove out of the village, turned the corner and about 50 yards down the road, was a broken down car. There was an elderly gentleman standing at the side of it, so I naturally stopped, asked if everything was ok - it was clear from 50 yards away that the old guy was in a bit of pain (unrelated to the current situation it turned out), and it transpired that his wife, also elderly, had been driving as the old guy had hurt his back and was under doctors orders not to drive. Anyway, long story short, his wife had hit a curb in a fairly percussive fashion, and had blown the tyre out. I had a look, and right enough, there was a big gash in the type, and it was painfully obvious that the old guy was never going to get it changed. So, again, not even thinking about it, I asked him if he had a spare, which he did,so I set about changing his tyre for him. As I was busying away, we got to chatting, I'd assumed that he'd only just broken down. But no, it turned out that he had been there for "oh, at least half an hour".
Now, this is not what could be called a quiet stretch of road. In the 10-15 minutes it took me to change the type, at least a dozen cars or more passed me, and I started to get more and more pissed off, not at the old guy, but at everyone else. I'm not looking for anyone to tell me how good a person I am for helping the couple, I'm really not, I don't consider myself a good guy. If I'm being honest, I'm probably a bit of a dick (I could list all the reasons why, but we'd be here a while), I didn't do it because I'm a good guy, I did it because it just would never cross my mind not to. In this kind of scenario, my thought process is:
1. Does this guy need help?
2. Can I help?
3. Help the guy.
What pissed me off is that there must have been dozens of people who drove past in the 30 or so minutes that this poor old couple were stuck, surely the law of averages states that at least one of them would have the physical and mental ability to offer help. Changing a tyre is not a tricky thing to do! I get why girls generally aren't keen/able to go it (although thinking about it, most of the girls I know who have cars probably would just roll their sleeves up and get on with it) - loosening the wheelnuts and jacking the car up does require a bit of grunt. But there is not one man I know who would not be able to change a tyre.
What kind of society are we breeding, where (lets be conservative) let's say 2 dozen people can drive past an elderly couple, clearly needing help, and have every single one of them choose (let's face it, it IS a choice) not to stop and at least check to see if there is something they need help with - even if they can't offer help, they could check that help's on it's way, they could offer to call someone for them. But no, these guys were ignored for 30 minutes or so. on a day which had been punctuated by a number of thunderstorms. Are we really now so craven a society where it doesn't even cross peoples mind that these old guys might need a hand? Every single day, a little more of my faith in humanity is stripped away. Today, I lost about a months worth.
At least some good came out of it, I got the chance to do a good deed, and yeah, know what, I felt pretty good about helping, the couple were more than grateful for the help, and my piece de resistance (spelled wrong, I know) came right at the end. I got their wrecked tyre into the wheelwell of the car, got the jack back in, and the second I closed the boot, there came a loud peal of thunder. Never before have I felt so manly. I pretty much had to stop myself turning and saying "The thunder god is pleased with this day, now bow before me, puny mortals!"
Seriously though, I fear there is going to be a day soon where I wake up, and find that I have no faith left in humanity. I can see there being a news report on me not long after, which will end with the words "before turning the gun on himself". If such a day comes, feel free to sell the story of how you knew me to the highest bidder. Make stuff up!!
Anyway, normal service will soon be resumed.
Sadly there are not many people like you. We were driving down a pretty busy road (lots of traffic lights, basically the main drag for the place two towns south of us. A woman had gotten a flat and had to cross two lanes to get into a parking lot. My husband parked in the lot, walked out to the street, and pushed her car out of traffic, but in the process, plenty of people honked AS HE WAS TRYING TO GET THE CAR OUT OF THE WAY! It wasn't rush hour, this was just prime weekend shopping time for people. Apparently that's more important. What gets me is that is seems like people have forgotten how to empathize and think about how they would feel to be the one broken down and needing help.
ReplyDeleteYes, though this was not the intent of the post, you are definitely one of the good ones. :)
--Giselle
Thank you :)
ReplyDeleteSounds like your other half is definitely one of the good ones too. There aren't many of us around! Not that I would class myself as a 'good' one! I'm not a bad one, I guess, just a... well, a 'one'!