Double-pit! Blocking in people's cars and spam. What a combo.

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m double-pitting this morning. They earned it!

I checked my e-mail early this morning and found yet another forwarded message from that relative whom I’ve told in no uncertain terms to stop forwarding her urban legend/Jesus is coming back so watch out/send a greeting card to the sick kid/ spam to me.

So, this morning she sends another forward to me that’s been forwarded already a zillion times so it’s got two hundred other people’s e-mail addresses in the forwarded message. (Wait, did that make sense? :slight_smile: )

I look further down and see that she’s forwarded not two, three or four but five different spam messages, some with attachments. No more e-mail for her; she’s going on my blocked list and I’ll call her tonight to tell her why. I told her several times not to forward that crap to me but apparently she feels I need to see it. I don’t. No e-mail for you!
Next on my list:

I’ve seen this particular parking lot snafu happen at the school several times, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why apparently intelligent people who have cars and driver’s licenses can’t seem to figure out why doing this is not good.

This morning I took the little people to school. (Yeah. We missed the bus. :smiley: ) I parked in the parking lot (in a regular parking space…) and walked inside. I made the rounds, walked back out to the parking lot so I could leave to go to work.

The parking lot often fills up, so some yahoo will somtimes just park behind another car, blocking in that vehicle, and “just run inside real quick” to take their kids inside. Lo and behold, this morning when I came out of the school, there was an SUV parked behind a couple of vehicles that were parked in regular spaces, and there was a lady there talking on a cell phone, standing by one of the blocked-in vehicles, and looking mighty pissed off.

“I was just running inside real quick and I apologize that I got to talking to my kid’s teacher about something important and I lost track of the time,” was the excuse given to me last year when this happened to me. That day, I was astounded to see that when I entered the parking lot and approached my car, there was another vehicle parked sideways right behind me, blocking me in, and partially blocking the vehicle next to mine.

The owner of the partially-blocked vehicle had already arrived when I got there and he was steaming mad. He said it had been almost ten minutes since he’d called the front office of the school to tell them an announcement needed to be made that the owner of the vehicle with plate #(specific license plate) needed to come out and move it immediately. They did make the announcement, he said, but no one came to move it. He called again while I was there and asked that they announce it again, and they did.

Needless to say I was flabbergasted that this idiot would just park behind someone else’s car, blocking them in, and just leave for a while.

I offered to go back inside the school to inquire at the office, and he said he would stay there and keep watch for the owner of the blocking vehicle. He said he was giving it two minutes before he called a tow truck.

I started walking down the parking lot to go back inside the school when this woman came walking briskly down the crosswalk and turned to go into the parking lot. I thought it was probably the owner of the vehicle blocking mine, and sure enough it was.

She got to her car down towards the end of the lot and sure enough, that was her car. The guy who was waiting started railing at her about how inconsiderate it is to pull that kind of crap on people and how if there’s not enough spaces she needs to just park somewhere else where she’s not blocking in anyone and just walk herself in to the campus. I came up to them while he was ranting at her and I pretty much just told her I was now really late for work, that it was pretty inconsiderate to block in other people’s cars, and could she please just move her car so we could get going.

But the guy wasn’t done yet and he went on that he was two seconds away from calling a tow truck and she was lucky her vehicle wasn’t towed away. So she came back with the excuse of talking to her kid’s teacher about something important and losing track of time, and he came back with, “You chose to park in the middle of the parking lot and block in two other cars because you were too lazy to just go find an empty parking space somewhere else. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Get here earlier to get a space if it’s that important to you to be parked in this parking lot. I am not interested in hearing any more of your story because I am late. I need to get going.” (So that’s not verbatim; but it’s the gist of what he said …)

So he got in his car and I got in mine, and she peeled out as she turned around and drove off. Don’t know what point she was trying to make but she gunned it out of there.

Anyway, the whole point of that is that it continues to happen. I’ve seen several different incidents with different cars just this school year alone where people don’t want to park further away, so they just park behind someone else’s car, blocking in one or more cars at a time so they can get down and take their kid inside. A note from the principal came home at one point warning parents against doing this, but it still happens.

News flash to the idiots: It’s never just a “couple” of minutes. And if you want a closer parking space, get there earlier. Your tardiness isn’t my problem and you have zero business blocking in my car, preventing me from leaving. I don’t care if it’s for one minute or fifteen. Don’t do it. If you want a front space, get there early enough to take one. If the lot is full, well, it sucks to be you. You’re going to have to exit the lot and go find somewhere else to park. Next time I’ll pull a Kathy Bates on your car. :smiley:

(I think Kathy Bates’ fabulous car-moving scene was from Fried Green Tomatoes, right? The young girls steal her parking spot, saying something like, “We’re younger and faster!” Then Kathy’s character rams their car out of the space with her own car and takes the spot, and says, “I’m older and I have more insurance!” Great stuff. Not exactly the same but you know…)

But it’s not an isolated incident; it’s happened quite a few times just that I myself witnessed, and I’m sure it’s happened on days I haven’t been there. What is it with these people? Do they not understand basic courtesies? I thought it was just basic consideration and common sense that you don’t park and block in another random car.

So, parking lot car-blockers and spammers, consider youself pitted.

2

I had to tell a close friend to PLEEAASSEEE stop sending glurgy email crap to my work addy - it was annoying.

Now she sends it all to my home email addy. :smack:

3

I’ve found a couple of replies with links to Snopes.com are usually sufficient. Heck, I’ve even got my dad asking me to check on stuff for him.

We Heart Snopes.

4

I’m on board with the parking space blockers. I live in an apartment building with 24 units. There are 6 available parking spots. I pay for one of them. Anybody else … tough beans, park in the street.

Here’s the thing. Our “lot” is really just a wide drive way with room for two cars on the left, three cars on the right and one car at the very end (all the way up). And to make things worse for me, my spot is on the right all the way down. That is, when I pull in, I have to weasel my way between the other cars that are parked to squeeze into my spot. You don’t want to hear what a bitch it is backing out when all cars are present – I literally have about 6 inches on either side of my car for clearance.

And the inconsiderate assholes who just park smack-dab right in the middle of the driveway, ostensibly blocking four cars at once. And they just “run in” to their apartment or their friend’s apartment or whatever and stay for 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes or so - or however long they feel like fucking everybody over.

Or, I get home from work and some dick has either blocked the entire driveway or parked in my spot. Ferchrissakes there’s a sign on the wall that says, “Private. Parking by permit only. Violators will be towed.”

But even that is a hollow threat, because it would be next to impossible for a tow truck to fit in there to actually tow anyone.

I’m not much for the passive-aggressive note leaving, but there’s been a few doozies. One lady in my building whenever she gets blocked in or out, just sits there and lays on the horn until someone hears it. Sometimes nobody does and she just wears that fucking thing out.

HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK - HONK

She almost worse than the blockers.

I’ve had words with her.

See now … you got me all riled up.

5

Often making an announcement that someone’s car is blocking egress does not get a prompt response, but making an announcement that someone’s car has been hit in the parking lot does. Just report that you saw a vehicle hit the offending car and drive off. Those announcements get the attention of the self important assholes who do this.

6

My Wife and I got blocked in once. We had been married for all of ohhh 2-3 hours.

Yep. Standing in the freaking parking lot in a tux, my Wife in her wedding dress and some asshole has blocked us in.

We got married at the top of a ski resort in the summer. Seems the next wedding party didn’t want to park an additional 50 feet away and just blocked a bunch of us in. Yep, there was plenty of parking just down the row. I was fuming.

Sure, it was a gravel parking lot, but it was organized. Just because there were no painted lines does not mean it’s a free for all.

It was nose to nose parking and this idiot parked nose to my rear bumper. Luckily as our wedding party left I managed to squeeze out.

7

People, people! Just because a car is parked, doesn’t mean it can’t be moved.

Once at university we managed to open a car that was blocking a friend, put it in neutral and park it ourselves. Now granted, it wasn’t the closest parking spot, but it was legal. Even locked it back up afterwards.

Seriously, we parked that fucker way out in the back 40, all alone. It looked like a piece of art sitting there by itself.

8

Yep. I had a very nice lady sending me spam becuase she honestly thought I needed to know. I mean if you believe the spam it makes sense to want everyone to know some of this stuff. I just took a little bit of time and wrote a rebuttal with a link to snopes and soon the e-mails stopped.

9

Yeah but then they wise up slightly and send you stuff that Snopes actually confirms. :frowning:

10

And then you have people like my brother-in-law who just get mad after you’ve Snopesed them a couple of times - cause lord knows, you can’t be bothered to check your glurge yourself before you forward crap to everyone you know.

11

My neighborhood in L.A. is slowly converting from one-story bungalows to five-story condos. So every year there are 10 or so more families with school-age children than the year before.

The traffic at our local elementary school is God-awful as a result. It used to be that I could find a space two blocks away and walk in. Now the closest I get is four blocks. (The only reason we don’t walk the whole way because we have to drop my son at middle school first.)

In order to keep things from getting totally out of control us parents volunteer for traffic duty. We have five people on patrol every morning and three every afternoon. We show people where to park, open doors to get the kids out faster, and yell at people who do illegal or dangerous things. That’s my favorite part of the job. Getting to tell someone off for parking illegally in the handicapped spot gives you a warm glow all day.

The school also has an arrangement with the cops to come out once a month and write tickets. They show up without warning so you never know when you might get slapped with a several hundred dollar fine. That helps keep people honest too.

Maybe the parents at your school could put together a set of volunteers to be “parking lot monitors” to remind people of the rules.

12

I know how that would have played out with my cousins. They would have hauled out a chain and moved it.

13

I saw a real good one at the mall a couple months ago. It was a black Mercedes SUV with gold trim, parked in a corner of the lot so as to trap three other cars. WTF?? Why a corner? Bonus, one of them was a handicapped spot. Double bonus, there were plenty of open spots at the back of the lot where I had parked. Oh yes.

I was just pulling my keys out in preparation for a little street justice when my girlfriend spotted a parking cop writing tickets across the way. Yes, that did get her a gratitude dinner at a nice place. And yes, I get stupid when I’m mad.

So we hiked over and talked to the cop. He went from mildly annoyed to fairly pissed off as we pointed out the situation. Then he got on the radio. The tow truck must have been trolling nearby, because he showed up before we even got out of the lot. The cop was busy writing while the tow truck guy hooked up the ego-mobile, and for once they both looked like they enjoyed their jobs. We wanted to stick around and mock the driver when he/ she/ it finally came out but we were late for a party.

I should know better than to go to a mall anyway.

14

And be sure to cc: all those other emails, so they all know what an idiot the original sender is.

15

My sincerest sympathies for having to deal with entitled assholes. I do think it’s kind of a shitty situation where the school doesn’t have enough spots for people to park when they need to drop their kids off, and if it’s the case I would think it would be acceptable to park someone in if it really just took the 30 seconds to walk across the parking lot with junior to the doors and say “OK, have a good day at school.” If that’s the case though, why can’t they just drive up to the doors and do that?

And just to nitpick your FGT scene above, she drives off after ramming the car yelling “Tawanda!” She doesn’t stick around to take the spot.

16

Unless the school was built in the last ten years, I’d bet nobody anticipated the need for all those parking spots. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember any of my elementary school friends getting dropped off at school in a car - everybody either rode the bus or walked.

Even if it’s a new school, it’s hard to justify the space that would be required for 50 extra parking spots that would sit empty except for half an hour in the morning and half an hour afternoon.

17

The worst though, is when they’ll send spam proved false by snopes, and add a line on the end that says:

PROVEN TRUE BY SNOPES!

Morons. One even went so far as to include the link to the website that proved him wrong.

18

Pochacco, this is fabulous! I’m pretty positive the PTO could round up plenty of parent volunteers and organize something like this. Thanks for the idea! I am definitely going to bring this up and I’m willing to bet every parent who has been blocked in would volunteer.

I’d consider it well worth taking off a morning from work to pounce on the yahoos who pull stupid stunts like this in the name of dropping their kids off at school.

People who park and block others in, those who jump the drop-off line (and yes, everyone honks at them…they ignore the red hazard cones and drive around them. Then the resulting mass horn-honk sounds like a herd of elephants stampeding.) and pull other inconsiderate and dangerous stunts are overdue for something like this. I want that warm glow too!

Enginerd; this is a relatively new school built within the last six years. There are two parking lots (rather large in my opinion; then again it is a large school) and both fill up every morning during drop off. People end up lining the adjacent streets to park. Yikes.

Hey there BellRung, wow, I forgot that part; it’s been a while since I watched it. I was so jazzed watching her do something I’ve always wanted to do I forgot that part. :smiley: It’s wonderful, wonderful stuff. I think I’m going to have to watch it again this weekend just for the enjoyment of that scene. The entitlement and the sheer inconsiderate nature of these jackasses just boggles my mind, really. I can’t imagine just blocking in someone else’s car and thereby telling them to go fornicate themselves, they can damned well wait until I get back and I’m good and ready to move my car.

I’ve replied back to spammers a few times (and I reply to all if I can) with Snopes links but there are a few (like this particular relative) who I know wouldn’t even bother looking at it. sigh.

New plan: We won’t ever miss the bus again!

19

But remember to hit the car first!

20

I would think people would resent being yelled at by volunteers with no power or authority, and bad words or fists would ensue.