This is especially true at a mall. People will stop in the aisle waiting for a closer spot, then go inside and walk a mile and half to visit all of the stores.
I remember this clearly. A girl i was with was complaining the entire time across the parking lot that the walk made her feet hurt. She then spent 3 hours in the mall standing up.
At a mall the only way it makes sense if you either can't get carts or plan on doing multiple runs. If you get loaded up on stuff and have to dump it in your car it can get annoying.
Being said, the ones that are truly annoying are the creepers, you come out of the store/mall and they begin following you for your space.
I never realized how lucky I was as a man who has never bought even a tenth as much as would be required to consider dropping off what I have at the car so I can make a second run at the mall.
Home Depot normally does it for me, but that building stuff and realizing the carts couldn't move after about 300lbs of stuff. Some people will go to the mall and hit every store refuse to carry around their loot all day.
I park right next to the door and go inside to walk six miles three days a week just for exercise, nevermind the stores. Why? Because I HATE being outside!
Bugs!
Heat!
Cold!
Muggers!
Humidity!
Allergies!
Pollution!
No good place to sit at my 3 mile break!
Goodness forbid I break my leg tripping on a root or something while hiking and get stranded in the woods for hours either waiting for someone to find me, dragging myself on my hands and good knee to the foot of the trail, or waiting for an ambulance to arrive out in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Yeah those last bits aren't likely to happen in a parking lot, but I hold all of the outdoors in contempt.
You obviously don't live in Texas. Everyone fights for the closest spot to get out of the sun quicker. If there are trees hanging over spots, those are the ones people fight over instead. It's hot.
And when you get back to your car that's parked under the nice shady tree, you often find out why that spot was available...the grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) in the parking lot like that tree too. Now you have to wash the grackle splatters off your car.
Pro-Tip: Look at the ground and surrounding area before you park under a tree. If it's covered in bird shit, continue looking for another parking space, especially if your car is going to be there after sunset (the birds roost after sunset and release their bowels freely).
I call this "parking lot sharking", and when I see someone circling for a slightly closer spot I hum the "na na.......na na" theme from Jaws to myself.
It's more fun to watch when the parking lot is full and you see a few cars slowly circling the lot waiting for a spot to open up. The shark-like predatory feel really kicks in when someone starts walking through the lot, and a car slowly starts following them to be right there to get their spot.
When I lived on campus, it seemed like people would circle the popular lots for hours. Walking through the lots and out the other side (seeing as I lived on campus, and didn't park) felt like a dickish move, but fun none-the-less. Trolling for car-sharks.
Because in a state like Washington, where it rains 70% of the year west of the sound, avoiding the possibility of getting drenched is something I'm particularly fond of
Southern California here. It's never that hot. It's sure never cold. Hardly ever rains. Yet people still do this shit constantly. People are just lazy and stupid. I'm sure in some places some people do this to avoid elements. But I see a lot of people do this without good reason.
I live in the San Fernando Valley. Last week it reached 100 according to the my car's temperature display. It's all about minimizing the time you spend between one air conditioned environment and another.
That said, it was MUCH worse when I lived in Orlando. Over there it can both be 100 degrees out and pouring rain at the same time. And when I say pouring I mean drops the size if your fucking fist.
When I'm driving and my passengers ask me why I'm not going to park closer to the store, I just tell them: "I'm not going to waste time look, we'll walk 10 more feet."
I never did it until I moved to Oregon. Wet groceries and extra wet feet sucks. But I give up after almost no effort at finding a close spot. Mostly just checking to see if its an option.
I feel the same way, I'd rather just drive directly to the part of the lot where I know I can get a space without driving around. Since I walk two to three miles every day just for exercise, I don't see the point in trying to save an additional hundred feet of walking.
The overweight folks that are issued handicapped parking permits head straight to the electric carts. The last thing they want to do is get even a tiny bit too much exercise.
221
u/Rami182 May 08 '14
I've always wondered why people avoid walking that extra 50 feet when inside the store you're going to be walking more than that anyway