It got a little too real in a Costco parking lot this weekend. Photo via YouTube.
It was only a mere two weeks ago, a more innocent time, that we suggested that you might have had a lingering hope for humanity. Now it is my solemn duty to inform you that a new road rage brawl—in a Costco parking lot outside of Toronto—has killed said lingering hope. Like, this video takes hope for a long walk to the woods with a shotgun, just like my dad did with my first dog.
There's a lot to unpack here, so let's start from the beginning. (You probably just want to watch the fucking video and not read my weeping for the planet, so I'll embed this thing first.)
You are watching this, not reading me, aren't you.
As all good YouTube videos do, the video begins with yelling and a complete lack of context for that yelling. "Get in the car," a woman screams. There are many cars (it's a parking lot) and many people milling about. So, which car and which person are unknown. Carrying on.
"Learn how to fucking drive," a shortish man in his 30s or 40s wearing an Aeropostale shirt says, finger pointing aggressively towards a tall, white haired fellow who is stepping out of an SUV.
So, we have met our protagonist and antagonist of this short film. Which one is which, I have no idea. I don't think it matters.
Here we are introduced to some secondary characters, including the partner of White Haired Man.
"You're an adult, get in the car," a woman tells White Haired Man's partner. (Presuming it's his partner, they share the rage that only an old married couple can possibly generate on short notice.)
Aeropostale Shirt then makes some vague reference to parking ("you go here") and White Haired Man's partner loses her shirt.
"You fuck off, you fuck off. We were waiting here for the car," she screams back.
Then we have You Walk Away Seriously Lady, who escorts Aeropostale Shirt away. Sidenote: As someone who got involved in a few scraps in his younger days, there is always a You Walk Away Seriously Person. This person still has a lingering hope for humanity and is really just pissing in the wind in these situations. You Walk Away People of the world, you should just walk away seriously and let these idiots fight, there's little you can do to stop them.
"YOU FUCK," White Haired Man's Partner yells at Aeropostale Shirt as he walks away. Her voice is breaking and you can tell her vocabulary has broken down to the point where "YOU FUCK" is a high-level insult. One of the saddest things about life is that the more upset you get, the lower the chances of your getting out a proper zinger. Life is not an Aaron Sorkin teleplay.
Read More: This Video of a Road Rage Brawl Will Crush Your Lingering Hope for Humanity
White Haired Man's Partner, who is my favourite character at this point, now addresses the person behind the camera (the video is published on YouTube by the Carreiro Team, a real estate team), but really she is talking to you and me, the viewer.
"And what the fuck is wrong with you?" she asks, and really it's a fair question. What the fuck is wrong with you (and me, TBH)? Why are we watching? Is YouTube violence the modern day bread and circuses that distracts us from our own looming mortality and the various prisons of capitalism's making? You (I) could be calling granddad right now (he's the one with the true looming mortality after all) instead of watching this. But anyway, we're all complicit in this shit, blah blah blah. I don't want to write about this anymore than you want to read it.
ANYWAYS, the camera remains cool and calm and doesn't look away, no different than you watching this from your phone or cubicle. If the Carreiro Team are as good at selling houses as they are at filming parking lot brawls, they are rich, rich people.
At the 32-second mark, a man in a Troy Tulowitzki shirt walks by. Tulowitzki went on the DL Saturday around the same time of this brawl, which probably means nothing, but it happened.
The threat of violence appears to be over as everyone retreats to their car but...FLASH CUT to an unknown point in the future (likely seconds) and everyone is out of their cars and screaming again.
High, very, very high pitched screaming here ("WHAT ARE YOU DOING??") and it appears we have first contact. White Haired Man is standing right in the middle of the shot, and we see Aeropostale Shirt shove White Haired Man's partner hard to the ground.
White Haired Man roars in and begins wildly swinging at Aeropostale Shirt. He may be about two decades older, but he's a foot taller and appears to have Old Man Strength.
Aeropostale Shirt is having nothing of it though and walks towards the White Haired Man (who is wearing sunglasses, this is going to be key) and directly into a pretty big punch. Aeropostale Shirt doesn't care and continues to approach and then walks into a whole bunch more fists. A woman tries to break it up here, which only results in White Haired Man landing a bunch of freebie punches. (Editor's note, who is me: This is NOT cool.)
They break apart and White Haired Man notices his sunglasses have been knocked a bit off his nose and readjusts them like he's David "YEAAAAHHHHH" Caruso. When he tells this story, and he will tell it often, I guarantee you he will say he got off some kind of catchphrase here. "I guess I put your face....in park," or something like that. Maybe he's better with catchphrases than I am.
OK, this is also the part where this video officially gets sad. "Call the police," a woman pleads off camera.
Aeropostale Shirt appears physically confused ("He's rocked!" the UFC announcer would say) and White Haired Man's partner is very, very angry she was pushed down.
A Costco employee helps escort Aeropostale Shirt away and then the just awful fucking sound of a young boy screaming "Nooooo, Daddy" can be heard and you see a boy being held by his mother.
OK, this is undoubtedly the worst moment of Aeropostale Shirt's life and I don't want to seem cruel, but dude, you were acting like this in front of your kid???? What the fuck is wrong with you? That poor kid is: A) going to be really, really upset for weeks and B) when he gets just a little bit older is going to lose all respect for you. He will never be able to say "My dad can beat up your dad" and you just don't take that away from a kid. Bad dad!!! Over a parking spot!
As of this writing no charges have been laid in this incident, although I think everyone has been found guilty of something (minus the kid and the valiant employee) in the court of public opinion.
We all had lost hope for America (i.e. the humanity the world cares about) years ago and the Texas brawl of two weeks ago changed little of that. But in Canada? Fighting over a parking spot that isn't near the Zamboni door represents the end of era. We are just as shitty as everyone else.
Follow Josh Visser on Twitter.
from VICE http://ift.tt/25uNRDY
via cheap web hosting
No comments:
Post a Comment