Parking Lot Peeves

     People, can we just talk about parking lots for a minute please?  Do you find yourself getting pissy almost each and every time you drive into one?  Do you constantly feel like you’ve pulled into an overcrowded idiot convention?  Well, I sure as hell do. I swear I was ready to get all Kung Fu in the grocery store parking lot over the weekend.  If I’d had a megaphone, I would’ve rolled down my window and told every one of those lolly-gagging a-holes to move outta my damn way.  Honestly, how can you have your head up your ass and still drive a car?  Makes no sense at all. Unfortunately, it seems that the general population has forgotten all about the basic common sense rules of parking lot etiquette:

#1:  If you’re gonna insist on waiting for Grandma Moses to take her sweet time pulling out of the closest parking space to the building, then scoot your freaking car over to the side so that the mile-long line of cars behind you can get around you.  You are not the Queen of Sheeba, and nobody wants to wait on your slow ass to get that prime spot.

#2:  Park your stupid car in between the yellow lines so that I don’t have to worry about you door dinging me when I pull in next to you.  It’s not that hard, and if you can’t do it properly, then maybe you need a refresher course at the DMV.

#3:  Don’t put advertisements on my flipping windshield — whatever shit you’re selling, I’m not buying it.  

#4:  It’s soooo not cool for a non-handicapped person to park in a handicapped spot.  Do you really think the person who’s in a wheelchair’s gonna be ok with you taking his spot cause you just HAD to run into the Starbuck’s real super quick to grab your damn latte?

#5:  Driving like Danica Patrick in the Toys R’ Us parking lot is probably NOT the best idea.  Most people prefer that their offspring not look like little kid roadkill.

#6:  When you’re walking to your car with all your packages, you might not wanna walk SMACK DAB DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING AISLE.  Just a thought.

#7:  If you see that I’m trying to load up my car with a bunch of bags AND two small children, you might just wanna find another spot to wait on cause I’m probably gonna be a while.  You sitting there glaring at me with your turn signal on is only gonna irritate me.  And laying on your horn is most certainly NOT gonna make me speed up.  In fact, I may do the exact opposite just for meanness.

#8:  Take your damn cart back to the cart corral when you’re finished with it.  Don’t even think about leaving it in the empty parking space next to yours simply because you’re too stinkin’ lazy to walk it ten paces over to the cart corral.

#9:   If you see that someone’s backing out of a parking space, how ’bout you wait a tiny second and allow them to back out?  Zooming around them on two wheels is not gonna get you anywhere faster.  

And #10, THE GOLDEN RULE:  Do not, I repeat, DO NOT steal someone else’s parking space!

Caution: Idiot Behind The Wheel

     I am by no means a perfect driver.  In fact, many would argue that I have a tendency to have a lead foot when I’m behind the wheel.  Can I help it if I just wanna hurry up and get from Point A to Point B?  However, there are many other people out there on the road who are WAY worse than me when it comes to annoying driving behaviors.

     First off, there’s the driver who won’t even go the damn speed limit.  If the posted sign says 40 mph, that does not mean that you should leisurely putter along at 30 mph, taking in all the scenery along the way.  Nothing burns my booty more than getting behind some old fart who refuses to go anywhere near an acceptable speed.  Put the pedal to the metal and move along little doggies — mama’s got places to go and people to see!  (And for the record, I beg each and every one of you to promise me that you will confiscate my keys if and when I become one of these little old ladies who’s reminiscent of a turtle on wheels.)

     Then, we have the driver who doesn’t use turn signals.  I really don’t get this concept.  Are we supposed to just guess which way your car’s gonna go or what?  Unfortunately, most of us don’t have ESP, so we’re not going to be able to accurately predict that you’re turning into the Walgreen’s parking lot at any given minute.  I mean, come on, seriously, how hard is it to flip a little switch to the left or to the right?  Are you really THAT lazy of a person?

     Then, there’s the driver who’s pimping a lookalike cop car.  You know what I’m talking about — the ones that make you slam on your brakes when you’re cruising along a little too fast down the highway, only to find out that it’s just some old dude in a cowboy hat smoking a pipe.  Why exactly would you want people to mistake you for the fuzz?  Is it cause you just enjoy effing with people?  

     And what about the people who straddle the middle line of the road?  Talk about giving someone a freaking heart attack!  It’s not a very pleasant feeling to wonder if you’re about to have a head-on collision with one of these yahoos barreling towards you. And if you’re behind one of these drivers, you can’t help but wonder if they’ve been tipping the old Jack Daniels bottle as they’re swerving and curving and practically making figure eights on the pavement ahead of you. Those yellow lines were painted there for a reason, people!  You stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine.  Such a reasonable concept, if you ask me.  

     And then we have the people who display those “Baby On Board” stickers on their back windows.  What exactly is the purpose of these little decals? Am I supposed to hit you softer if we have an accident?  Am I only supposed to drive safely when I’m around YOUR car?  Shouldn’t I be driving safely for everyone, regardless of whether they’re an infant or not?  Maybe I should put a sticker on my car that says, “Nucking Futs Mama On Board” so that people will know not to piss me off by driving like an idiot around me.  

     As hard as I may try to avoid all these nit-witted drivers, I tend to come in contact with them countless times a day.  Sadly, it seems that they’re everywhere, they’re everywhere!  The road is a scary enough place to be as it is, and then you throw in people like this, and you’ve got yourself a giant headache in the making.  Pop some Advil in your purse and get your horns ready, folks, cause it’s pretty damn ugly out there.

Hell On Wheels

     

     We didn’t have a ton of money when I was growing up, but my parents worked their asses off and literally bent over backwards trying to give me as much as they possibly could.  So, when I turned sixteen, they cashed in an insurance policy and bought me a very used little silver Datsun that they had totally spruced up and pimped out.  I was beyond excited to have my own wheels to drive myself to and from work and school.  Little did I know at the time, though, that this particular ride had a whacked-out/cracked-out mind of its own.  

     I may have mentioned before that I am a tardy person by nature, and back in high school, this was certainly no exception. So when I was finally ready to race out the door and hop in my car, I needed some serious cooperation on its part to zoom me off to school in a quick flash.  However, this demonic car of mine had very different plans for me. One morning when my mom very nicely offered to go out and warm the car up for me, she realized that even though the key went in, it wouldn’t come back out. It was seriously just plain stuck. Since my dad often traveled for business through the week, my mom and I were left to our own inventive problem solving abilities.  We tried like mad to get the key to come out, but it was just not happening.  We even attempted to use liquid dish detergent to serve as a lubricant (I know your minds all immediately drifted to thoughts of sex there with the mention of the word LUBRICANT).  That didn’t work either, so we just ended up turning the car off, leaving the friggin’ key in the ignition, and having my mom drop me off at school that day and the remainder of that week until my dad got home from his trip.  And so began the tale of my psychotic little devil of a Datsun.  

     I can’t remember exactly how my dad managed to get the key out of the ignition, but somehow he did.  However, that was only the beginning of the problems with that unreliable piece of crap car.  One day when I drove it to school, I couldn’t get it to shut off. The key came out, but the engine just kept on running.  I tried over and over again to get it turn to turn off, but it was bound and determined to keep on going. Naturally, I was already late, so I had to just leave it running, lock the doors and race into school. Since this was back before the convenience of cell phones, I had to go to the school office to call my mom at work.  She couldn’t get away from work, so I just had to leave the stupid thing running in the parking lot for the entire school day. Can you even imagine how humiliating that was to try to walk out amongst my peers with my held high and climb into a possessed shitbox on wheels?  The one nice thing was that it was already nice and toasty for me when the school day finally ended.  Somehow, by the time I got home that day, the little demon decided to give its engine a rest and eventually shut off for the night.  (Hell, maybe it had even run out of gas by that point.)

     Unfortunately, though, the problem did not go away.  It actually got to the point where I’d drive it to my job at the mall on the weekends, pull into the parking lot, take the key out, lock the door, and just walk away, even though it was still puttering away like the Energizer Bunny.  My dad would come to the rescue with his Midas touch, since he was the only one who could get it to finally turn off. He always said he’d laugh hysterically when he’d see that little silver beast just humming right alongside all the other parked cars in the lot.  Eventually, he ended up installing a push button starter on the crazy thing so that it would actually turn off when it was supposed to.

     We were all so glad when we finally got rid of that abominable heap of metal.  It was extremely hard to keep a straight face when we sold it to some poor unknowing sap of a buyer.  She had no idea that she was about to learn the true meaning of hell on wheels.  Regardless of how much of a pain in the ass that little car was, it’s just one of the many examples of how much my parents were always willing to sacrifice for my happiness.  I completely understand and appreciate that way more now than I should have back then.