A Foolproof Guide on How to Survive the Perils of the Tesco Car Park

Tesco car park is going to kill me. If you see a white outline shaped like a body, don’t try and park in it. It is not a space. It is the deceased me. The whole car park is so confusing though, you’d be excused for trying to squeeze your Renault Clio into my chalk outline.

My demise will happen in one of four ways. Death by vehicle unexpectedly emerging from nowhere. Death by runaway trolley. Death by anger-induced heart attack. Death by seagull.

I’m talking specifically about the Little Switzerland Tesco car park. The one that’s on a slant. Yes, I know it was like that back when it was Shoprite (#rip) but less people used it then, which means there were fewer opportunities to stop living against your will.

There’s something that happens in public situations where, for some mysterious reason, the part of the brain that stores common sense decides to cave in on itself and die. It’s most prominent when people go through airport security, when people get on or off a plane, when people get on or off a bus, when people get on and off a train… it’s mainly when people are entering or exiting public transport. Common sense is lost and any consideration for other people is replaced by blinkered stupidity. Using the Onchan Tesco car park has been added to this list.

Consider this a foolproof guide on how best to survive it if you must go. Good luck.

Death by Runaway Trolly

I saw one the other week. It was FLYING. Fleeing for its life like it had escaped Azabaijan, wait no, Azkaban. Someone hadn’t put it back in its cage properly, so it saw its opportunity and fled. Fortunately, it was stopped by the side of a Range Rover.

Death by Vehicle Emerging from Nowhere

There are cars coming from everywhere. It’s like Total Wipeout with Nissan Micras. Walking near the entrance? Watch out for the car taking the bend like an F1 driver with bowel problems in need of a loo. I swerve out of its way, only to find another car has driven through two free spaces to jump the queue of vehicles waiting impatiently at the random diagonal crossing near the exit that no one knows how to use.

I carry on walking towards the shop, warily eyeing the car that’s slowed down after seemingly picking a parking spot. It changes its mind at the last minute and accelerates past, caught in the gaze of a ‘better’ space because there is so much choice. Too much choice. Like Tinder for concrete. Forget about indicators helping you avoid being turned into human jam. Everyone is too distracted to remember they exist.

Then you’ve got the people who bottle parking. I walk past watching as they nervously try backing into a spot, beads of stress-induced sweat forming on their brow as they glance in the rear-view mirror at the unforgiving queue of traffic pressing in on them. The car right behind giving the parker enough wiggle room to fit a 2p between them. They panic and drive off. Embarrassed and ashamed in front of the line of cars who have just judgingly watched them bail out of reverse parking under pressure.

Lucky for them there’s about a thousand other spaces for them to choose from. And each one is different. Horizontal, vertical, sideways, perpendicular, rhombus, hexagonal. All of them are designed to make it as difficult as possible to park and as easy as possible to turn pedestrians into human speed bumps.

No one parks in the spaces at the far end of Tesco car park. I see tumbleweeds blowing across them in the distance as they look out longingly at the gridlocked first three rows of spots. I imagine people avoid them so as to not perish from the long walk to the store and back.

Death by Anger-Induced Heart-Attack

Meanwhile, from a driver’s perspective, there are few times I am more at risk of an aneurism than when I’m stuck behind some shopper walking at funeral march pace, oblivious to the sound of me passive aggressively revving the car behind them.

Death by Seagull

When I arrive, my car is seagull-less. When I emerge from Tesco. There they are. Stood on the roof of my car. Watching to see if I’ve got a chip bap nestled in my Bag for Life. They don’t move when I get to the car. Just stand there, looking down on me in disgust, sizing me up for a coffin in case they decide I’m worth the effort of murdering. Sometimes they stay on the roof as I drive home, so they can see where I live and kill me in my sleep instead. At least that way there’d be one less set of chalk lines to try and park in.