Shopper spends six years parking in every spot at his local supermarket
29 April 2021, 07:21 | Updated: 29 April 2021, 07:25
A man in south-east London has documented the "roller coaster" ride he embarked on while using in every single parking space at his local supermarket in a challenge which took six years.
Gareth Wild, 39, from Bromley, explained to his followers online that he wanted to add "excitement" to the monotonous task of parking for the weekly shop by using and ranking each of the 211 individual spaces.
He announced he had finished the challenge at his local Sainsbury's on 24 April, labelling the achievement his "magnum opus".
"After quite a few years of going each week I started thinking about how many of the different spots I’d parked in and how long it would take to park in them all," he explained.
"My life is one long roller coaster."
For the last six years I’ve kept a spreadsheet listing every parking spot I’ve used at the local supermarket in a bid to park in them all. This week I completed my Magnum Opus! A thread.
— Gareth Wild (@GarethWild) April 27, 2021
In a viral Twitter thread, he went on to rank every individual space using 'God Tier', 'Useful' and 'Avoid', with parking slot C1 declared the overall winner.
"It’s a great car park because you can always get a space and it is laid out really well," he said, "comfortably in my top five Bromley car parks."
He described his Skoda Octavia as "a pig to get in" to the final parking space - F20 - and urged fellow shoppers to "avoid the spaces next to the trolley bays".
"They’re just terrible," he added.
For anyone keen on taking a pilgrimage to the Bromley Sainsbury’s car park to bathe in my glory I’ve also marked out the best and worst spots to park because I’m such a swell guy. Seriously though, avoid the spaces next to the trolley bays, they’re just terrible. pic.twitter.com/M5gNBRJwja
— Gareth Wild (@GarethWild) April 27, 2021
He calculated his average trips per year to 60 and said he "could in theory have completed my challenge in under four years" but "annoyingly a global pandemic slowed me down."
Mr Wild gathered the data in an inspired colour-coded spreadsheet labelling each parking bay by a letter and number.
Impressed by his challenge, Sainsbury's praised his "car-mmmitment" told him the supermarket chain needs "to do something to help celebrate".
"Watch this (parking) space," the company said.
The spreadsheet has been given a bit of extra razzle dazzle to spruce it up a bit for presentation but this is it, this is 6 years of monotony. pic.twitter.com/kjCpMXeKo6
— Gareth Wild (@GarethWild) April 27, 2021
Following his rise to Twitter stardom for the day, he urged followers to visit the "historic" carpark and donate to the local Bromley Foodbank, which has collection bins in the supermarket.
"A fascinating insight into car park usage Gareth," the foodbank tweeted in response.
"Thank you for sharing the fun with us, we’re always eager to encourage donations to our supermarket bins. Keep up the important work."
