#134 Shopping Carts (Proper Disposition - Part 2)

I should have added this to my rant in #074 of my blog, but this instance was so ridiculous I couldn't even fathom the possibility of this even happening, which is why I didn't include it previously.

Why? I just....... How could you even........ Are you fucking kidding me?

I couldn't just ignore your incomprehensible and inexcusable shopping cart placement and just drive away (forward) from the situation since there was clearly another car parked in front of me. You have purposely inconvenienced someone else (in this case, ME) by being such a lazy piece of shit that you couldn't move your shopping cart elsewhere when you were finished with it. What the fuck is wrong with you?! You were obviously not parked in a designated handicapped spot - to which I still would have been pissed off but slightly less so, considering the possibility of whatever handicap you could be facing.

Dick move, man. DICK. MOVE.

#129 Vehicle Locking (Key Fob)

I drive over 100 miles every weekday. The bulk of these miles are accumulated going to and from work, but the additional few miles here and there are made going out to lunch or making stops along the way. Due to this massive amount of driving, my coworker and I take turns behind the wheel.

One thing that drives me insane (and believe me, there are many) is the fact that my coworker refuses to use the key fob to lock the doors while walking away from parking the vehicle. Rather than use the key fob when both of us have closed the doors, he will lock the vehicle from the switch on the inside of the door as he's exiting the vehicle. This occurs when he's either the driver OR the passenger.

I guess this wouldn't be such a big deal if I didn't keep my purse in the rear seat, but every time I pop out of the vehicle and quickly try to open the rear door before he's hit the lock button, I rarely make it before he's done it. Then I have to wait for him to pull the keys back out of his pocket, locate the unlock button, then unlock the car, wait for me to pull out my purse, close the door, and then lock it again.

While I agree that keeping my purse in the rear seat is not the most efficient place for it to be located, I will argue that it is the best place for it for several reasons: 1. I don't want to put it on the floor because the floor is dirty, 2. the center console is not a suitable place for it, 3. I don't want to hold it for an hour while I'm a passenger, 4. it won't fit on my body while I'm buckled in as a driver, 5. it is less likely to cause injury in the event of a collision.

It's not like we're going to (or live in) a crime-ridden community. He attributes it more to habit than anything else. My question is whether he wants to make it a habit of me yelling at him, or just NOT hitting the lock button before closing his door?

#086 Snowy Parking

Snow is a fact of life when one lives in the region of the country where I call home. Very often there is snow that arrives overnight causing a layer of snow to cover parking lots of workplaces and places of business. When people arrive in the morning and it's still dark outside, they apparently have no idea where they're parking (with respect to the parking spaces) unless they park in a corner of the lot. So when people leave for lunch (or even the end of the day), they return to their vehicles after the snow has melted and find that they parked across two spaces because they couldn't see the lines.

However... if they were smart, they would realize that if you drive your vehicle across where the parking spaces are, the tire tracks will reveal the lines (GASP! What a concept!) and they will therefore not look like a complete moron for not being able to figure out how to park in a designated parking space when there's only about an inch of snow on the ground.

#074 Shopping Carts (Proper Disposition)

I have been bothered by shopping carts before, but that time it was about not having enough carts on the lot when you need them. In this case, I am irritated with people that don't return the shopping carts to a safe and secure place.

There are some really good reasons that cart corrals exist: they serve to protect vehicles from being struck by stray carts, and they help keep them collected in one central location so returning them to the store (by store employees) is easier.

I used to work at a grocery store, and on several occassions I have witnessed carts being blown across the parking lot and strike vehicles from many different angles. Another thing that is annoying is when I pull up to park in a spot that appears empty from down the row of parked cars, but when I pull up to park in the spot, the spot is littered with shopping carts instead. It's even worse when this cart-occupied-parking-spot is only a few spots down from the cart corral!

I have also seen the majority of people just leave their carts on the lines in between parking spaces, or, if they parked near a curb, actually lift the front end of the cart up and park the wheels in the grass on the other side of the curb. I suspect they do this so that the cart doesn't roll away... but seriously: don't be lazy! Put the carts in the cart corrals!

#030 Parking Stalker

Being a parking stalker is where you follow someone in a parking lot walking to their vehicle in order to take their parking space from them when they leave.

There are only two times when being a parking stalker is permissible:
1. when there are literally NO other spots available (i.e. college campus lots with limited parking)
2. when there is severe weather (i.e. torrential rain; so much snow that the only available spots are over 2 feet deep in snow)

I am so annoyed by people who parking stalk when there is no real reason to do so. Most of the people who parking stalk could really use the exercise anyways. Park your happy ass at the end of the row and walk past all the other cars on your way into the building like everyone else. Don't sit with your turn signal on for 5 minutes while you watch someone pack all their groceries and/or children into the car... you literally could have been in the building already. All you're doing is preventing traffic from moving around you in the aisleway and drawing attention to yourself, and that is NOT the kind of attention you want to draw.

#011 Store-Front Parking

Convenience stores are supposed to be about just that: convenience. Small store, small parking lot, short walk in, short walk to what you need, short walk out: boom, you're done and on goes your life.

People who park their cars directly in front of the entrance of these stores, or by the curb next to the entrance, really bother me. Unless you are somehow physically handicapped, there is no reason for you to park directly in front of a convenience store. And even if you are handicapped, chances are there is a handicapped parking spot for you (required by law) which is extra wide such that you can park your car as carelessly as you want and still have room to get yourself out of the car and into the store. And if you're like the rest of us able-bodied people, you could probably use the exercise anyways - oh, did you run a marathon today? I didn't think so. Walk from the parking space.

I don't care if you only ran in for a box of Newports, or if you just need to get your midday lottery numbers and will be "out in a second", go park your car in the parking spots only 20 feet away from where you left your car in front of the store.

In some gas stations with convenience stores, there is little room between the fuel pumps and the store's entrance. I was at a store today near where I work where there is only the width of two cars' distance between the fuel pump and the store's entrance. So if someone is getting gas and someone parks next to them, there is no room for a car to pass through, and hardly enough room to even walk around these cars.

What if while walking in to get your tin of Kodiak you have a heart attack and collapse.... and the paramedics are called but they can't get to you because your car is in the way? Well, I guess you get what you deserve at that point. However, don't put someone else's life in jeopardy just because you're lazy.

#008 Handicap Parking

People who are authorized to use handicap parking spaces bother me when they don't use them. Who are you to take up my "yellow" parking space when you're so privileged to be able to park practically right next to the front door?

I don't care if the handicap tag belongs to someone else who doesn't happen to be in the car with you... if you're going to hang it from your mirror or if you have it on your license plate, use it. Don't take up a spot that I could have potentially taken but now I have to park a half mile from the damn entrance.