The Peril of Materialism

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One knows not the peril that materialism brings until one is caught in a situation where they must safely acquire a parking space in a factory outlet shopping centre.

All humanity is lost when one is found in that circumstance. One is thrown into the fight or flight mode, and will always choose fight over flight simply because somewhere inside the factory outlet lies a special bargain that one believes that they will never find elsewhere, even though one knows particularly well that at home on the internet, they can find a better deal that is the quarter of the price in this area. 

One persists despite this fact. Mistakingly, one places their indicator after having circled the entire complex over three times, taking longer each time due to the building up of traffic, and stops three metres behind a reversing car filled with victims of capitalism whose things they have purchased have been crafted by exploitation. One makes another mistake in thinking that since they have their indicator on, other people will understand that they have claimed it first, for despite the orange flashing, one's parking spot immediately can lose its vacancy by a lurker, if one is not careful enough to watch all corners of that parking space.

And one cannot do anything about a stolen parking space, for if they tried then they will instantly be categorised in the state of fault, even if one was not at any fault at any time at all. One will find that they will lose the argument in spite of all truth and all odds and one would know not to bother arguing in the first place so as to avoid humiliating the other or hurting the other severely. So, one calmly turns off their indicator and keeps on driving, searching for another car park and hoping that the same thing will not happen to them again.

One then finds themselves contemplating about why they are in that situation in the first place. They wonder why they bothered driving just over an hour to an outlet they might not have a chance to even enter when the shopping centre down the road from their house has relatively the same things for reasonable enough prices, and offer plenty of car park spaces minus the probability of being in a car crash, getting run over or partaking in a road rage brawl. 

One hurries back home after finally finding a car park and acquiring the things that one initially needed but learned to be without after experiencing the traffic on their way back home. One now does not even consider reliving this experience again and does not recommend it to others.