Some people are just fucked.

Let me tell you a story.

Marianna goes to day care at Acre Woods Day Care Centre in Gladesville. It's located in a complex of industrial units. There are maybe a dozen cleary marked parking spots right out the front, stating who the parking spots belong to and that they are for dropping off and collecting of children.

Across the driveway from the Centre is a gym which has it's own set of parking spaces. Not a day goes by that there aren't some cars parked in the Day Care Centre's parking spots which obviously belong to people using the gym. During the main part of the day this isn't an issue but in the mornings and late afternoons it is because there are often no parking spots outside the Centre for parents to use.

There is parking out on the street but it involves walking up/down a ramp. Now parents are only there for 10 minutes at drop off/pick up time - in and out. Gym goers are generally there for an hour or more. It would seem logical to anyone with more than a dozen brain cells that if you are going to the gym and can't get a park in one of their spots that you could park in the street and take the short walk to the gym (what's a bit more exercise).

Anyway, yesterday afternoon when I pulled in to pick up my bundle of joy, my sweet little treasure (are you detecting the subtle note of sarcasm?) there were no parking spots outside the Centre. As I hovered waiting for a spot to come up I saw two young blokes, gym bags in hand get out of a van and head towards the gym. A mum who was at the time putting her toddler in the car obviously had had enough and said something to them (I couldn't hear her but I could tell she was agitated). They said something back and kept walking. Obviously she lost the plot because she ran into the gym after them and continued yelling. At that time I parked in a spot that had just become available and as I got of the car she got into hers and drove away, clearly very distressed.

The main goon stood in the gym door and was yelling at her and swearing. In the heat of the moment I yelled over at him that he shouldn't have been parking there and pointed at the signs. He said something really smart like "well, I've been parking there for a year" (hmmmm, well that's OK then!). Then he continued swearing and yelling how he wasn't going to be spoken to like that (in reference to the other woman's comments). I told him not to swear as there were children around and said "you're a big man". He continued going off, "f" words flying. My heart racing, I went into the centre.

The point of my story is that people just aren't courteous any more. These young men are just selfish pigs, they don't give a shit about anyone else, let alone the needs of young children and their parents. We must appear like weird aliens to them, as they peer at us from their ego-fuelled universe, wondering why the hell we can't just leave them alone to go about their hedonistic ways.

I go around with a constant level of underlying built-in guilt, constantly apologising to people in the shops for touching them, even if they were the ones to bump into me, always worried I'm in someone's way or somehow impeding them in my actions. That's also extreme and I am constantly annoyed with myself for this automatic apologising. But surely there's has to be a certain level of decency amongst the community, some level of caring about each other, simply "doing the right thing".

Is it a generational thing? My dad thinks it all started to go wrong with the women's movement demanding "equality" and that was the thin edge of the wedge when it comes to manners and civil behaviour. I don't think so. But there must be an explaination as to why people today are so rude and self-centred and plain obnoxious.

Any ideas?