I’m sure you are all aware of porticos and their functionality. They are the bits of wall that allow ingress or egress by way of a large gap filled with a barrier that moves once pressure is applied to it, or tugged upon.
Take your average Mall entrance - a multitude of doors, providing several exit/entrance points. Some of these doors even swing both ways, like bi-sexual barriers. For those in Davrosmobiles, there is a panel you can ‘happy slap’, and the door will open automatically!
On the face of it… not that difficult an obstacle to overcome.
But wait! Like something out of George A. Romero movie, the shambolic shuffling shoppers approach the doors. Now, a Normal Person would go up to a door, open and it, and walk through. Alas, this is a concept beyond modern folk.
First, they will gather at the one currently open door that someone had the brains to open, and wait patiently to file through it. Unfortunately, modern folk have lost the ability to queue*, and therefore mass around the door, thus blocking the other doors. When suddenly, there is anger – one of the doors they’re blocking has opened! Right into them and pushing them back! The anger turns into wonderous amazement – another portal has opened! And the throng now diverts into two lumbering groups (as it still hasn’t dawned on the braindead that they can open another door themselves).
And what do they do the second they pass through? Immediately stop, as if there is an invisible barrier right outside the doorway, for it seems essential that having waited to get through that one opening, that’s it’s only fair to block the way through by searching in your handbag, or pondering where to go next, or have a row with the Other Half.
But what if NO door is open? What then?
Well, this is such an unsolvable conundrum, that when faced with a bank of unopened doors, the only solution is to freeze near to where you think a possible door may be opened. To cover the embarassement, it is de rigeur to fumble about in a bag, and when a door opens, take your chances! Accepted practice is to be laden with shopping with your arm still rummaging in a bag, affecting a Quasimodoesque lumbering skippety run to catch the door with your shoulder to get through before it closes.
Or course, some of these gormsters think of themselves as chivalrous, but turn out to be cretinous. For some will be polite enough to hold the door open for someone… but naturally, given their ineptitude in the skill of actually opening a door, the concept of holding a door open for a Pretty falls equally afoul of their limited intelligence. For rather than standing by the door and holding it open, they will often stand opposite the door, holding the door open with their arm across the opening, thus preventing passage. The Solution? After a bit of awkwardness re unable to pass through (or unwillingness to duck under) some odious oily oik’s BO stenched ‘pits, shove the door wider, allow Pretty #1 to pass, catch the door as it swings past, shove it open again, allow Pretty #2 to pass, then dive out before it closes (and before the husband of bf gets through, so you can leg it if he threatens to duff you over accusations for holding the door open as an excuse to get a good gozz down his missus’s blouse).
If they had a pram, or a trolly, I could understand it, as given something with wheels, all their brains fall out. Scummy Mummies with double buggies of their rancid brood, trying to squeeze down too-narrow market aisles, then clobbering their brats to stop them screaming because some shoppers heavy bag of goods has smashed their squalid spawn in the face. Why can't the broodmare wait with her kids in a clear space, whilst underage dad nips to the required stall?
And don't get me started on Old Gimmers who think just because they're old, they can just walk to the front of a queue**, filling up their pull-along ankle-biter trolleys with their shopping, and pulling out a select few to be scanned at the till so they can escape with a decent five finger discount. Or when you're looking at stuff on the shelf, and they ask if they can "just squeeze past" (despite having a whole corridor to walk around) and instead of continuing past, they stop right were you were and decide to peruse the very shelves you were tying to look at! Then get all arsey if you sigh heavily and walk back in front of them to carry on with your shopping.
* More queueage in a later blog.
** That wasn’t the more queueage I was talking about. That’s still to come. Unless, like the now legendary Chronological Cheese, the opportunity never re-arises.
