July 11: Parking in Rear

Is there anything more annoying than not being able to find a parking spot? Yes. Is there anything more annoying than finding a parking spot in a crowded lot only to find that the car in the adjacent spot can't stay in the lines? Yes. Is there anything more annoying than going out to your car in a crowded parking lot only to find that some lunatic decided to park directly behind you when you're clearly parked right in front of a pole? No.

How a person could possibly be so dumb is beyond me. It would be one thing if a group of us all parked in one lot, left, and returned together. But to visit a large restaurant that seats over four hundred people and park behind a complete stranger is mind boggling.

Did this person do this because I drive a truck and he or she assumed I would be able to shift in to four-wheel drive and climb over the pole? Did they do it because they saw the SD on my rear window and they were die-hard Dodgers fans? Maybe it was a guest that I served the previous week in which I gave lousy service and they happened to see me drive home that night. Yes. It must have been the latter.

I think that people get so angry when driving around a crowded lot that they'll do anything for a spot. That's proven every year at every summer street fair. People are willing to pay twenty dollars to be able to turn their vehicles off. Schools, private homes and businesses, and parks make a killing from their lots and driveways. Maybe this person made two or three laps around the huge parking lot and decided that they weren't going to take a fourth. The next open space they saw was where they were going to park their Nissan SUV. That space just happened to be directly behind my truck.

Thankfully, I was able to maneuver my truck around the pole and over a curb without hitting any other vehicles to get out. It didn't take away the frustration, though, had accrued upon witnessing the lack of intelligence this Nissan driver had so generously displayed. Just when I didn't think there could be anything more annoying than finding that my truck had been blocked in, it happened again.