Pick it. Park it. Walk it.

Pulling into the parking lot at work this morning I noticed a little red car crawling through the lot looking for a place to park. The lady in the car drove down one row and up the next then around in a circle. Then she did it again, as if in the thirty seconds of circling someone would be leaving. Come on, lady! It is 9 am. People aren’t leaving - they are staying. They have swiped their yuppie badge, are checking their e-mail, and trying to figure out how to make the next 8 hours go by as fast as possible. After I parked out in the north forty as I always do and made my way to the building, the little red car passed me making yet another circle.

Seriously, unless you are a candidate for a handicap sticker or pregnant - park it wherever there is spot and walk. Now I may be wrong, she may not have been looking for a parking space. She may have been stalking someone. Which then causes me to wonder, what is stalking all about?

My next parking lot issue is people who see you walking to your car, follow you, and then wait for you to load all your Wal-mart goodies in the car so that they may have your parking space instead of the one five or six spaces up. This happened to me the other day. I had a primo parking spot at the Wal-mart and when I got back to my car lo and behold there they were just waiting for me to leave. Folks, this makes people uncomfortable. I don’t like thinking that the person in the other care is impatiently waiting for me, hand hovering over the horn, steam seething out of their ears because I am not able to unload a cart full of groceries at lightening speed.

Normally, I would hurry as fast as I could but on this day I took my time and made sure each bag was in its proper place (as if they have proper places) and even made sure my cart was returned to the inconveniently located cart return corrals. I think next time I’ll pretend my car won’t start and tell the people I can’t move it, then after they have parked half a mile away, pull out and drive past them with the “Oh Gee! Silly me forgot to put the key in the ignition” look on my face.

To be perfectly honest, I am guilty of having done all of the above but my usual parking lot motto is “Pick it. Park it. Walk it”. Pick a spot. Park the rig. And walk off some of the doughnut I inhaled on the way to work.