East is east and west is west

The twain always meet

When I had an account on Facebook, some of the people I corresponded with were people I knew, some were people I didn’t know, and some were close personal friends or family. And, while I cannot, of course, speak for you, dear reader, my experience of Facebook was that, of the matters on which one could have the most intense of exchanges on that portal, not a murmur would be mentioned when you actually saw the people you’d corresponded with face to face, in reality, in the real world. It was as if there are subjects we discuss on Facebook, and subjects we discuss face to face, and, like east and west, ne’er the twain shall meet.

That might seem strange, and it might be something you’ve never experienced and it might be individual to me exclusively. But there is something that needs to be said about east and west ne’er meeting; for, in truth, they do: around the other side of the world they do. And, argue it whichever way you wish, there was a place where Facebook and reality also met, and that was in me. In reality, I was the same person as the person who was writing on Facebook, and I am also the same person who is writing this blog.

This morning, as I was getting my bike out of the garage to ride over to work, at the shop where I work (as you do), a chap was at my front door about to knock, when he saw me at the side of the house. He smiled and asked me, “This car that’s parked in front of your house … it wouldn’t happen to be yours, is it?”

I had noticed the car in question last night, when I was drawing my bedroom curtains and I had looked at it wondering whose it might be. It had a strange shape and, in daylight, I could see the roof had a ski box on the top. I replied to the fellow that it was not my car and that I didn’t know whose it was.

I could see from his clothing that he was a workman and I assumed that he had probably come across from the building site on the other side of the road, where finishing works to a new house are in full course. Next to that new house and opposite my house is a field and, over the past few days, the many tradesmen doing these finishing works had been parking their vehicles on the field side of the road, because that offered more parking space, without blocking any driveways, such as mine. But with the car parked outside my house, that limited their parking opportunity alongside the field. I could understand their frustration: if only it could be moved, they could manoeuvre their big trucks and vans and trailers more easily.

I could not have known the level of annoyance that this posed to the workman. I think it ought to have been somewhere around the level of “Oh, well, never mind.” And, to tell you the truth, that’s exactly where it was. He shrugged and returned to the building site to continue his work. If I had thought that this polite gentleman of a worker could have started to get shirty about the unidentified parked car, I would have been far more wary of him. But, in the society where he and I live together, workmen and householders treat each other with due kindness and respect.

I don’t know his name, and I don’t know if he has a Facebook account. In fact, I don’t even know what trade he is in. He was sent because the car posed an annoyance to his work team and he kindly asked if it could be moved, and I regretted I couldn’t move it for him, and that was that.

He did not pull out a gun. He did not call me a fucking bitch. He did not challenge me to move the car, even if I didn’t have any means to do it. He did not strike me or yell at me. He did not cover his face, he did not wear military boots, he did not carry walkie-talkies or have assault weapons slung over his shoulder.

On the contrary, I was at no time frightened by this man. He was civil, polite, understanding (pretty good looking, I have to say). But he conducted himself towards me, even though he was standing on my property, just as I conducted myself towards him: in a civilised manner, as two gentlemen discussing a minor problem with a parked vehicle. I cannot speak for him, but I can say that I personally never would want to live in a society in which I must be wary of a workman approaching my front door on my driveway.

Neither of us called the police to have the vehicle towed, because neither of us had a right to do that. The car was legally parked. It was obstructing no one, except anyone who wanted to park on the opposite side of the road, and in that situation, he who parks first has priority.

Maybe this tradesman goes home of an evening and beats his wife. Or abuses his children. Or slinks out in the night to meet with drug dealers or break into factories. Maybe he is a secret axe-murderer, and I can count my lucky stars that I’m still alive, after refusing to move a car that was obstructing a lawful builder’s van. Perhaps the day will come when, if a car’s parked outside your home and a guy without identification and without even showing his face comes along and demands that you move it, you just have to move it, otherwise he’ll pull out a Glock and put a bullet in your brain.

East and west. Sure, they meet.