For the love of...

Okay, this is going to be brief because I'm swamped, but I just had to take a moment to marvel at the stupidity of some people. (And yes, I'm still PMSy, why do you ask?)

But seriously, folks. I park in a lot at work that's gated. All you have to do to get into the lot is swipe your ID card through the little slot and voila! (or as a former boss used to type, viola!), the gate magically opens. Technology is a wonder, no? So, to review: drive up to gate, position driver's side window so that you can lean out, swipe card through, drive into parking lot. Not that difficult, or so one would think.

Yet I repeatedly witness the startling ineptitude of people who park here EVERY DAY (hence they should know the drill) and who a) don't pull up the right way and have to open their car door to access the card swiper, b) manage to pull up correctly but then spend two minutes searching for their ID as if it were a surprise that they had to swipe it through, c) are unable to correctly swipe it through [this baffles me, honestly--there's even a diagram showing how to do it] and have to put the car in reverse and back away from the gate to torture some other souls in some other parking lot, or d) all of the above. What's even more fun is when several cars in a row do this, as if they didn't learn from watching the idiot who just pulled this nonsense. It's like being in line at a fast food joint for several minutes and the guy in front of you, when he gets to the counter, finally takes a look at the menu to figure out what he wants.

Anyway. This morning's idiot pulled up incorrectly, put his car in park, tried to get out but realized that the car was too close to the machine and he couldn't open the door wide enough, got back in, put the car in reverse, pulled up incorrectly again, got out, started fumbling for his wallet, eventually found his card, and took (by this point, I was watching, gape-mouthed, and I counted the swipes) EIGHT TRIES to get his card through. Oh, and after every failed swipe, he'd get back in the car, realize that he'd not managed to open the gate, and get out again. I shit you not.

Finally, FINALLY, he made it through, and I shook myself from my stunned reverie, reminded myself yet again why it's a good thing that I don't have a laser beam attached to the front of my car (although my god, I could take car of all the bad drivers here within a day), and drove up, card at the ready, swiped it, drove in, parked, and was out of the car before the idiot had finally successfully negotiated his car into a parking space.

And people wonder why I'm in a shitty mood by the time I make it into the office?! Ye gods...