Parked across two spaces

Most people who take more than their share try not to be seen doing it. Someone who slips past a queue keeps their eyes down. Someone who leaves rubbish on the sand does it after dark. They know the crowd is against them, so they stay quiet.

Something different happens on a busy evening by the water in Al Khobar, when a man leaves his large new car diagonally across two spaces and, asked politely to move it, says he does not want it scratched and he will park however he likes.

He is not hiding. He is making an argument. His car, his evening, his rules, and everyone else can find somewhere further away.

That is the more dangerous of the two, because it is not really about one parking space. It is an attempt to make taking look normal, even sensible. If it works, the next car does the same, and the one after that.

And it is a poor deal, even for him. Once taking is normal, it is normal for everyone. Next weekend someone else will block him in, or take the spot he wanted, with exactly the same speech. His selfishness only pays while most people decline to copy it.

So the outcome is never really decided by the man in the car. It is decided by everyone watching. Whether the families nearby shrug, or say something. Whether the attendant lets it go. Whether, the next time, the same move earns a look that makes it awkward.

The car is his. What counts as normal along that waterfront belongs to everyone who saw him park it.