Ponder, for a moment, the asshat.
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| First Images result. No surprise there. |
“Asshat” may be an unfamiliar term for many of you, though rest assured, you know one or two. An asshat is irritating for no apparent reason, but not to a level of severity sufficient to earn the term “asshole.” It’s not enough to make you angry, but it’s enough to make you throw up your hands and say “man . . . what the hell?”
Imagine, for example, you’re at a gas station where all the pumps are taken, so you get in line behind someone. The guy in front of you is leaning against his car, watching it refuel. When he’s finished, he starts washing his windows. That’s not an openly hostile act, but you’re left sitting there thinking “dammit, why didn’t you do that earlier?” That guy is an asshat.
When it comes to driving, asshattery takes many forms. The guy who doesn’t signal when he changes lanes. The guy who swerves over to the empty lane at a red light so he can be first off the line, then takes 18.7 years to get to 60 miles an hour. The guy at a left turn who waits while several perfectly long gaps go by, then floors it out of the yellow light so no one else can follow him. Often, these people don’t know they’re doing anything wrong, they’re just not paying attention, and the rest of us facepalm.
Then there’s parking. Parking allows for a whole new level of asshattery, because a) there’s generally less going on around you, so distraction is a terrible excuse, and b) you’re by definition not moving when you finish, so you can survey your work and fix it. Today, we examine that special breed of asshat, the parking asshat.
1. The Intentionally-Ignoring-Giant-Yellow-Letters Asshat
This guy drives a BMW 550i, which has a 4.7 liter V8. That huge V8 is powered—and this may shock you—not by electricity, but by gasoline, and lots of it. But that EV parking spot is closer to the door at Whole Foods, and it was free, so this guy parked there. That makes him kind of an asshat.
But here’s the thing. Why should EV drivers get to park closer anyway? Do they buy heavier food? No. Do their cars have separation anxiety? No. Do they have separation anxiety? Possibly. Are their legs too weak from lack of circulation due to excessively skinny jeans to walk as far as other people? Probably. But giving special rights to electric vehicles that have nothing to do with the actual nature of the vehicle is retarded, and Whole Foods patrons are unbelievably self-righteous about their organic lifestyles, so fuck ’em. I salute this guy.
Asshattery: ★
2. The It’ll-Fit-I-Swear-No-Really Asshat
This person already gets asshat points in my book for driving an Accord hybrid, which gets 33 miles per gallon as opposed to the positively earth destroying normal Accord, which gets . . . *checks Honda’s website* . . . 31. Oh. So what you’re doing here is paying lots and lots more dollars for a car that’s slower and douchetacularer. What this person then did is to smear his/her Accord along the side of a brand-new 40th Anniversary Edition Nissan 370Z, which is quite a nice car. How it’s possible to scrape the entire length of a car without noticing until you’re already in, I don’t know, but apparently it’s possible. The only thing I can think of is that this person is older than most buildings, stone deaf, and slightly more aware of his/her surroundings than the car itself is, which would explain the choice of car and the parking job, but is not an excuse. If you can’t park an Accord, stay home. Forever.
Asshattery: ★★★
3. The I’m-More-Important-Than-You Asshat
According to the
Jalopnik reader that sent this in, “this guy wanted to budge in front of me for gas so bad (from the opposite direction) that he pulled up with the tank on the wrong side.” That in itself is pretty bad, but let’s zoom in for just a second.
To cut someone off in line for gas is one thing. To do so at the cost of being on the right side is another. To then have any expression other than shame, guilt, and avoiding eye contact is yet another. But to be actually angry at the guy you just fucked over? Whoa. Double asshat . . . all the way. Combine that with the BMW license plate and frame, and you’ve got yourself a rare specimen.
Asshattery: ★★★★★ ★
4. The Nobody-Touch-Me Asshat
Everyone’s seen this. We get it. You have a nice car, you don’t want it to get scratched, so you take two spots so no one will park close to you or open their door into you or whatever. Kinda makes sense, but still a little toolish. This is slightly more excusable, for a number of reasons.
A. That’s a Ferrari F430 Scuderia, and it is a fantastically beautiful and expensive car, which means
B. The slightest scratch on the door will probably cost 2500 billion dollars to fix, and anyway
C. Supercars are really hard to park, due to poor visibility and low seating, but it’s cool because
D. It’s a mostly empty lot, so you’re not really hurting anyone.
I think this one’s pretty benign.
Asshattery: ★★
5. The Seriously-Nobody-Touch-Me Asshat
This man has also occupied two spaces with one car, but his crime is both more egregious than that and entirely self-evident. First of all, that’s a Smart ForTwo. It is absolutely miniscule. It is, for example, literally six feet shorter than my car, and I’m not driving a Maybach or anything (it’s eleven feet shorter than a Maybach). My point is, a fucking toddler could make that car fit in one space. You could probably fit it in horizontally. You could probably stack two of them in one space, maybe three. Plus, if it gets scratched, you can probably buy an entire replacement panel for about a hundred bucks. There is absolutely no excuse for ever doing this in the history of ever.
Asshattery: ★★★★★
6. The You-Think-I’m-Kidding-But-If-You-Touch-Me-I-Will-Straight-Up-Lose-My-Shit Asshat
I’m torn here. On the one hand, this guy is clearly rich. He’s got an Audi R8. He has also taken up a portion of four parking spaces, and handicapped ones at that. That should be enough to earn him the full ten asshat stars, but wait. Let’s look at this a little more closely.
First, he owns an R8. That means that he’s rich, but he’s got good taste. Rather than spending his $140,000 on a BMW that looks the same as every other BMW, or a Porsche that looks the same as every other Porsche (of which there are fucking millions on the roads), or a Mercedes that looks like . . . well, like shit, this guy bought an exquisite, reasonably unique, piece of German engineering. It’s a good choice, and that means he did his research. And he must be credited for that.
Now let’s look at the parking job. Yes, he’s in four spaces, but he’s not preventing anyone else from parking there. In fact, each space seems to be about twenty yards to a side, so really he’s using the space more efficiently than it would otherwise be used. It looks to me like this guy was driving through, saw the gaping maw between handicapped cars, and decided “Fuck it, I’ll park closer.” He took the risk of getting a ticket (and got one), but he’s an opportunist and isn’t hurting anyone, and I can respect that.
Asshattery: ★★
7. The THESE-COLORS-DON’T-RUN-AMERICA-GODDAMIT Asshat
SUVs. They’re huge, inefficient, slow, handle terribly, and are increasingly unable to handle the off-roading tasks for which they were originally designed. Now, they serve mainly as an outer reflection of the person in them: fat, loud, greasy, and unbelievably irritating. Also, they are very hard to park, if you’re dribblingly incompetent. Sometimes, you’ll see an SUV that accidentally parked in such a way that it pokes out of its spot a bit, like a fat person on a plane. A good example is the white Suburban on the right side of the photo. But to take such a relatively normal-sized car and then, for no apparent reason, to occupy four spaces with it? Asshat.
Asshattery: ★★★★★ ★
8. The Probably-Not-Handicapped Asshat
This guy is not handicapped, but he has decided to occupy the handicapped space and another one as well with his
BMW 3-Series. According to the guy who sent this in, he does this every day. Score.
Asshattery: ★★★★★ ★★
9. The Even-Less-Likely-To-Be-Handicapped Asshat
This is a very expensive Mercedes CL63 AMG. Rather than occupying one space and one handicapped one, he has taken two handicapped spaces (reserved ones at that) and the “No Parking” space in between. Amazing.
Asshattery: ★★★★★ ★★★
10. The Are-We-Not-Making-Ourselves-Clear-With-The-Purpose-Of-Handicapped-Spots Asshat
That is a Lotus Exige. It is one of the best-handling, nimblest cars in existence. Suffice it to say that if you own one, there is a snowball’s chance in hell that you fulfill any standards for handicappedness. It is impossible. And to pull a parking job like this outside a Starbucks/Potbelly? For shame.
Asshattery: ★★★★★ ★★★★
11. The Oh-For-God’s-Sake-What’s-The-Point Asshat
It’s the same double handicapped space combo with a side of no parking zone, but this one’s a motherfucking cop. In front of an IHOP. According to the person who submitted it, the cop came in, talked to the staff for an hour, and left without ordering anything at all. Parked like that.
Asshattery: ★★★★★ ★★★★★
12. The Trifecta
That’s a Ferrari F40, a Ferrari F50, and a Ferrari Enzo. 13.6 liters of displacement, 32 cylinders, 1635 horsepower. Between them they are occupying four handicapped parking spots and a no parking zone. Only the F40 is parked correctly, which is saying something because it’s the only one without power steering. And don’t even think of telling me that maybe they’re actually handicapped. Anyone remotely handicapped would be killed instantly by the kind of power those cars put down. To demonstrate this point, I have embedded a video of Fernando Alsonso. He is a driver for Ferrari’s Formula 1 team, during which he is subjected to lateral forces of up to 6.5 G. Just to keep his head on, he has developed muscles that most of us couldn’t dream of. Here’s him smashing a walnut with those muscles.
I think we can agree that no one who drives an Enzo has a handicapped permit. I am truly staggered by the level of asshattery on display here. There is no excuse.
Asshattery: ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★
Let this be a lesson to all of you: Don’t be an asshat.
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Unreasonably Dangerous Onion Rings 
It was subtle, but I caught the double rainbow reference… nice work.
disclaimer…. at the risk of defending an asshat, and with the knowledge that I bitch endlessly when I see stupid parking jobs:
The THESE-COLORS-DON'T-RUN-AMERICA-GODDAMIT Asshat
From the looks of the picture, this looks like its in the mountains. Furthermore, the plate on the Asshat's car (SUVs are not trucks) may be a colorado plate. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this may be Colorado but at the very least is a place where it may snow considerably. As most URDO readers can attest to, when it snows cars always end up parked like shit. Its not cause we are all asshats, but because we cannot see the lines, and have to guess. While he is clearly in the middle of two spots horizontally, he is almost in one row, and this may just be a case of 'the car parked while it was snowy, then it melted, and the car was out of position'. If thats the case then we really cannot blame him, or the suburban next to him, cause lets face it, thats not his fault.
then again, it doesn't like like it snowed particularly recently, so he may just be an asshat.