Scene: nearly empty health club locker room. I am getting dressed after my swim. Another woman comes in, looks at all the unused lockers, and chooses a locker across the bay from me, right next to the ONLY other locker on that whole row that has a lock on it.
Me: (Almost asks her why she chose that one, but can’t figure out how to phrase it without sounding like an asshole, so keeps quiet)
Thirty seconds later: Third woman comes in, begins unlocking her locker–yes, THAT one.
Interloper: (apparently genuinely astonished) Oh! I’m right where you need to be!
Third Woman: (politely) Yeah. (begins changing)
Interloper: Isn’t that the way it always is! Ha-ha! (pulls her own locker door nearly closed, in a great, yet somehow unconvincing, show of making room)
Third Woman: Yep. (nudges Interloper’s locker door a bit more open, because, come on)
Me: (dying to say something, like YOU MADE IT THIS WAY, STUPID, THIS DIDN’T JUST HAPPEN, but cannot figure out how to phrase it without sounding like an asshole) (and besides, it isn’t affecting me anyway, I’m on the other side of the bay)
Interloper: Ha-ha! (nervously, still apparently baffled by the mysterious ways of this universe of ours)
I mean, seriously? Is this some sort of a metaphor for the world these days, and people having no conception of the consequences of their actions? Because, come on. What is that about? And I see it all the time. We get to CHOOSE our lockers, people. We have perfect freedom! What is this herding instinct?