Grocery Store Parking Lots Are A Lawless Abyss

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I crept my car forward with fear. Fear for what? Well, I wasn’t entirely sure. One tap of the brakes at a time, I attempted to make my way across that grey area between the parking lot and the entrance of the grocery store. Surrounding me were men, women, and children all daring me to go over 3 miles-per-hour.

It wasn’t until I finally saw that the coast was clear that I took my foot off the brake and rested it gently on the gas. With my blinker flashing and my knuckles whiter than the sourdough I was in search for, I turned the steering wheel to the right in an attempt to get a spot. Not a front row spot by any means, but one that would require a small walk from the car to the sliding doors of the store itself.

Out of nowhere, I hear a honk. Not just any honk, but a honk apparently at me. Too close to be directed toward anyone else, a middle-aged woman in a white BMW sedan pounded the horn harder than I mash the like button when a Jeff Goldblum Instagram comes across my feed. She threw her hands in the air as she breezed through a stop sign. I couldn’t tell what she was mouthing, but it was something to the effect of, “Shut the duck.” I couldn’t tell.

Knowing I did nothing wrong, I drove in front of her and gave the same shrug Michael Jordan gave in the 1992 NBA Finals. I, in my Ford Fusion, had no stop sign in front of me nor did I have anything else impeding my path to a truly mediocre parking spot. It was at that moment that I realized that once you turn into a grocery store parking lot, all rules go out the window.

Whether it’s a 31-year-old yogi toting a hemp bag filled with micro-greens or an able-bodied man in a Ford F-350 Extended Cab parked in the middle of a lane waiting ten minutes for someone to pull out of a front row spot, there’s no sense of decency in the confines of a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. One minute you’re listening to Gwyneth Paltrow’s new Goop podcast, the next you’re slamming on the brakes trying to avoid getting hit by a Toyota Sequoia that’s careening across every lane of empty parking spots rather than taking the normal law-abiding route to the corner of the lot.

Nowhere in the world do rules need not apply quite like this death trap. People are legitimately daring you to hit them as they leave the store and walk diagonally to their car at a snail’s pace. “Do it, bitch,” a housewife will mouth to you as you pause for her to cross in front of you. “I fucking dare you.”

Outside of the alotted area for parking, there’s no other place in the world you can throw your car into park for five minutes while some elderly woman loads her hatchback up with groceries just so you can take her spot. It’s as if the driver loses all sense of time in the universe as they sit there holding up five cars behind them. Sensibility is lost as they probably wonder, “What’s everyone’s problem? I’m getting a prime spot here.” News for you jackass — you’re about to embark on a grocery shopping journey that will cost you about 1,200 steps. The extra 100 you take from the back of the parking lot to the front of the parking lot aren’t going to put you into a coma.

Once you finally get around the mouth-breather who can’t walk, you find yourself in another lane where someone just seemingly stood at one side of the parking lot and pushed their empty cart into the abyss hoping it would find a home nestled in with all the other carts in the designated cart area. Where it lands is behind the aforementioned Sequoia, only to be later collected by a parking lot attendant who most definitely hates their life.

Sure, there’s a security guard on a Segway who’s job is to make sure there’s no bloodshed as a result of road rage, but even they know how hopeless and dire their situation is. They hold no power, no real clout. Their job is to roll around and hope that their fake badge is enough to scare people into acting like normal, decent human beings. But that’s not enough. I’d say that normal police officers have better things to do than patrol these 15 mile-per-hour parking lots, but even they’re probably sitting back thinking, “Nah, not touching that shit.”

I, a victim of grocery store parking lot abuse, urge each and every one of you to be on your best behavior while surveying the scene for a place to park. Be the change you wish to see in the world and don’t let a middle-aged woman in a white BMW run you off the road because the biggest thrill she gets in her drab life is going to the grocery store every day. .

As you may already know, The Ross Bolen Podcast covers the disaster that is mid-parking lot grocery carts extensively. Give that man a listen and subscribe.

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Will

Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.

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