Monday, June 23, 2008

Poke a Parkie




Us Brits like to queue, it’s a national pastime; for you Yanks, that’s standing in line. I like to offer help to the needful.
Foreign students to Oxford are actually warned not to jump the queue It’s a pity they don’t heed the warning, but there we are.

Let me explain; the bus is late, the queue is long. But we stood in line, and we shuffled on, keeping to our allotted places. No one pushed and no one shoved, and we all felt loved.

traffic

Until that is, a bunch of ‘parkies ‘ moved to board the bus, ‘ahead of the queue’.

(Parkies’ are traffic wardens, whose job it is to go round inflicting pain on hapless motorists who can’t find anywhere to bloody park.)

As I was saying, the Parkies decided to get themselves on the bus, without ‘waiting their turn’.

That did it.

A large man in a bright green sweater told ‘em to wait, but one toe-rag decided he was getting on, no matter what. Mutters all round, and he got prodded in the ribs – by yours truly.
“Go and queue like the rest of us have to” I snarled but he scuttled past, regardless. It didn’t end there “Heard of queues have you?” I hissed at him.

The rest of the Parkies had begun a retreat, pretending that the bus wasn’t there and they couldn’t see it.
The battle went on; several passengers complained loudly about ‘people who didn’t have to pay either’ with pointed glares at the criminal who was still on board.

His chums, very wisely stayed on the pavement.

cop2

So next time any of you bluebottles think it’s all right to jump in, think again. It ain’t.
And I’ll be happy to remind you.
Yep.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Fred,
I commend you on your firm stance regards qeueing. Considering it's historical relevance this issue can simply not be overestimated. It was one of the main causes for the toppling of the gerontocratic regime in the old GDR. People simply were tired of qeueing for everything. The second cause was bananas. Not freedom of the press and a yearning for democracy, like you thought. Those ran about fifth and sixth. Or seventh and eighth. Ha ha. And likewise ho ho.

Mad Dog said...

Ha Ha! The plural of two or more Brits abroad is "queue". On a slightly less amusing note I was recently nearly assaulted by a nasty man who thought I was jumping a queue at a hospital pharmacy (I wasn't, -I'd merely returned as instructed by the pharmacist to pick up a bungled prescription). Queuing is a dangerous business (and of course you know everybody has guns over here).

Red Fred said...

Ahh....it was bananas what did it, says a lot about the Krauts, does that.
Except, I'm not going to say it.

Dunno what to advise Mad Dog, damned if you queue, damned if you don't
Better take up hang-gliding, yep, that's the answer.

Mad Dog said...

Hang gliding? I'm working on it RF, I'm working on it:
http://self-preservationsociety.blogspot.com/2005/06/into-thin-air.html