More Parking Lot Madness

The holidays bring out the best in some people and the worst in others. I should be writing about happy holiday cheery things, but then that wouldn't be consistent with my normal cynical tone. Here are two examples of remarkably stupid people that pollute parking lots at the mall, at department stores, and other places that have row parking.

Number 1: I'm not sure who designed row parking, but whoever it was seemed to have the right idea. He/she decided to design the lot so that the parking spaces angled one way on one row and the opposite way on the next and so on and so forth. This way, one could drive down the row where the angles pointed toward their car so it would make parking easier. Then if there were no spaces available, they could pull to the very next row and roll back down the opposite way.....extremely simple concept. Tonight, I'm pulling out of the parking lot at the local Walmart and when I get to the end of the row, some R.S.P. is pulling into my row...going the wrong way. I sat there in my car awaiting for them to become aware of their parking lot faux pas, but then I realized I was at Walmart. The person sat there and would not move. So I had to squeeze around them narrowly missing the bumper of a parked car near the end of the row.

Number 2: I just love it when I'm trying to leave a parking lot and there's a car in front of me in a very narrow row who decides to roll the window down and have a 10 minute conversation with their friend. After all, their conversation is more important than anything in the world and causing a back up of cars is insignificant in their world. RSPs abound.

Any other parking lot stories?

Handicap Hang Tags

Okay, this is more of a remarkably "ignorant" people story. Have you noticed lately that people with handicap hang tags in their car will pull into handicap spots?? Doesn't sound unreasonable. After all, these hang tags are given to people who suffer from ailments that make it harder for them to walk long distances. So, the people with these hang tags are able to park closer to the store. Totally makes sense to me. Except for one thing; a person parks in the spot and then nearly sprints inside the store....no apparent issues with walking. Sprinting is probably exaggerating because most of these people walk very slowly into the store....more so when you're waiting for them to get across the lot in front of your car. And then to top it off, these same people park their large rear ends in the little motorized carts in the store.

A couple of observations here. First, how do these people get these hang tags? So, in this case, the remarkably stupid people would be the authorities for allowing this sort of thing to go on. Second, I wonder if these people realize that they're taking the spot from someone who truly needs it...i.e. pregnant women, truly handicapped individuals, etc. Do they care? Probably not. And finally, how fun would it be to walk up to one of these people in the store and explain that if they walked more and got their butt off the motorized cart, some of the weight might come off. Or would that be politically incorrect?? I think this goes beyond stupid and is just an example of the level of entitlement in this country that many people feel. It's irritating, but it probably won't get better.