Free parking is generally in short supply, and the lots and bays are usually run by entrepreneurs who make some serious cash while their “clients” avoid the dreaded half-hour, four-rand scam.
Free parking is generally in short supply, and the lots and bays are usually run by entrepreneurs who make some serious cash while their “clients” avoid the dreaded half-hour, four-rand scam.
Free parking is generally in short supply, and the lots and bays are usually run by entrepreneurs who make some serious cash while their “clients” avoid the dreaded half-hour, four-rand scam.
Finding available parking anywhere has become a mission akin to having my molars and incisors removed with several pieces of string and one giant door slam.
Free parking is a joke, since all “car guards” are intent on inducing guilty feelings, or, if that fails, intimidating you into handing them cash once you’ve decided to make use of “their” facilities. Handing them an apple and a plaster won’t do the trick either, as Sunny (my car) and I once found out.
I sometimes make an effort to give these guys money, but stop short of dishing out R20 and R50 to every guy in a luminous green or orange bib, just because he expects it. Except, one guy, on being told I did not have spare change, elected to stand right against my door as I was leaving the parking bay, and then proceeded to thump Sunny’s roof as I drove off.
Tempted though I was to stop and dump on him from a dizzy height, the situation also made me wary, since I had no idea what lengths he would have gone to for a few extra rands.
It also really gets to me when I approach my car with not a car guard in sight , and deactivating my alarm system before being confronted by three of them emerging from a siesta!
And then the original guard, trailing leaves and brushing soil off his pants, still feels compelled to guide me out of the parking bay! How does he think I managed before the dawn of car guards, parking sensors and cute little cards bearing their names, which I’ll promptly lose?
The only place of note I’ve come across recently that was devoid of these guards was Cape Town’s V & A Waterfront. Of course, I also found out that this type of free parking comes with its own risks too…
It is likely that you will be run down by an Athlone socialite in her X5 or C-Class. In her mad rush to avoid the crippling parking fees, she’ll sideswipe the person waiting patiently for a family hauling twins, pushchairs and parcels into their brat-bashed Scenic.
And all Mrs Socialite does in the face of this is roll her eyes and bemoan the insolence of those plebs who think they are entitled to a parking bay after waiting for it for several minutes.
This causes a ripple effect, since it reduces the initial parker to stalking people approaching their cars in the hopes of snagging a free parking bay. Either that, or cough up the cash for underground parking, for what should have been “a quick trip to the shops”.
Parking is definitely a very dangerous activity.
Jasmine
