As if wasting time on your weekend to run errands isn’t annoying enough, you have to deal with navigating your car through parking lots as well. This is a very arbitrary thing to complain about, but it drives me and Steven nuts every weekend.

We do most of our food/supply/entertainment shopping at SuperTarget. It is only 7 miles away from our home, and it has just a big enough selection to keep us from shopping at the over-priced, “club member only” grocery stores. There is something nice about knowing exactly what you want, where it is in the store, and just going in to purchase it (of course, when they are out – of Ice Mountain water, Baker’s Inn Honey Whole Wheat bread, Prairie Farms low-fat cottage cheese – it drives us nuts. But that is an entirely different post).

But every weekend – and I try to avoid using absolutes (only a Sith deals in absolutes), but it applies here – we encounter the same issues. And it drives us nuts. Every time.

Why…

…Is the parking lot littered with carts, every weekend, nearly every day as well?

The carts are not in their corrals – they are in parking spots, propped up on the curb, in the grass… Steven has complained to the manager more than once, and they don’t seem to care. They told us to complain to corporate Target, which we did. Obviously, it’s a problem, when there are no carts in the store, and you have to bring one in from the parking lot if you want to use one!

My advice is a simple four-step process. 1. Push cart to car 2. Unload purchases into car. 3. DON’T BE A LAZY SMACK – PUSH CART TO CART CORRAL 4. Return to car, and drive on… which leads me to my next question…

…Do people drive through the parking lots with disregard for the designated “roads” and lane directions?

It is NOT OKAY to drive through parking spots, even if you are “in a hurry,” “trying to get the best spot,” or “an effing moron.” Please see the image below of something Steven and I actually witnessed, at the SuperTarget/Strip Mall complex (we are the blue line, the other driver is the red line).

…Do people feel the need to speed up, driving dangerously fast, just to get what they think is the “best” spot? And also… why sit and wait in the parking lane forever, for someone to leave their spot?

Don’t be a jerk, and wait more than thirty seconds, and clog up the whole lane. What difference does it make if you have to walk ten extra car lengths? Steven and I always park very far away from the store, even if it is raining. (We do this to avoid door dings – and yes, I always take the cart back to the corral from these “middle of nowhere” spots).

…Do people ignore stops signs and common pedestrian courtesy?

If you are in your car, and I am walking to the store, I have nothing to protect me if you hit. Except, maybe a shopping cart.

…Are some parking lots designed so poorly?

This has nothing to do with humans driving, just poor design that makes a parking lot confusing. I bet you’ve all experienced one and thought, “what the hell, where am I supposed to go now?”

Enough of that; this post has become entirely too long. Congratulations to anyone who made it this far. I just had to share a bit of our “every” weekend experience.