Well, for one thing, it’s a stupid assumption that any mall parking lot will remain empty for any amount of time on the day after Christmas.
And anyway, on a daily basis, I deal with double-parkers, idiots who don’t use their turn signal, people stopping in the middle of intersections, and yes, people who make up multiple parking spaces, both in lots and parallel in the streets, and I chose to vent a little bit of frustration in a safe, non-violent way on this jackass.
Then feel free to play parking games when there are no more spots available. But until then just let it be, as it’s not hurting anyone.
I know of several lots that simply don’t fill up during normal use. My old office had essentially two empty lots and the few cars up there would park all sorts of interesting ways. When it becomes a problem, I would have no problems with the OP. But it seems like it was just being annoying to someone who wasn’t causing a problem at that time.
About 4 years ago, I had a problem with 3-4 SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS that could not park their compact cars within the lines of the parking lot.
I took pictures of their cars parked all over the place one day. Called a quick meeting the next day and presented three of them with t-shirts with pictures of their cars parked that way on the front. Underneath the pictures it said “My other car is a school bus”
Yes, I caught some crap for calling them out in public and not being “sensitive” enough, but ya’ know what?
Yup, their parking skills improved dramatically overnight.
I’m with the OP. If I see someone who double parked, especially if it’s an Excursion or some other monstrously oversized car, I’ll pull into the space next to them and park as closely as possible on their drivers side. I have gotten a note or two bitching at me for my “lousy as fuck parking skills”, but I don’t care. If they aren’t going to consider other people, I’m going to see to it that they have to climb in the passenger side. Fuck 'em.
Meh. It’s not like I went Boondock Saints on them. But I have no tolerance for people who can’t figure out that their vehicles belong between the two lines. It’s not that hard. They illustrated that they don’t mind being a pest to others, so I have no qualms about inconveniencing them.
But with a half full lot they weren’t being a pest to others.
Not a big deal to me, but I think it’s misplaced anger.
No residue? What’s the fun in that? I want stickers so sticky they require replacing the windshield after I stick one right in front of the steering wheel at eye level.
i have no problem with people who can’t park well. But people who won’t park well have forfeited their membership in polite society.
I think we’re getting to the heart of the matter here - regardless of how many other people are using a parking lot, as a person parking a passenger vehicle, you are entitled to one spot, and one spot only. Your spot is indicated by the lines painted on the parking lot. If you’re such a free-thinking anarchist that parking lines don’t apply to you, then you need to not live in a society where there are so many people that we need things like allotted parking spots.
I don’t think the anger is misplaced, either. It’s about more than a car taking two parking spots - it’s about entitlement, and what makes some people feel like they’re more special than other people, and somehow the rules don’t apply to them. I’m not going to get out a baseball bat and smash in the window of a badly-parked car, but it does bother me, because I don’t understand why some people are more special than I am, and why I have to play by the rules and they don’t.
Just chiming in to agree with the sentiment. If I come across a bad parker and it seems that they parked that way simply because they were not skilled enough to park properly, I’d have no problem with them. But the sense of privilege of intentionally claiming two spots because they have a fancy car annoys me.
Sadly, most of the aforementioned notes left on cars are pretty pointless as the person knows that they are parked badly. They did it on purpose. Only vandalism would really piss them off, but I’d never do that because it would only piss them off and drive up everyone’s insurance rates, not teach them a lesson. Only way to really make a difference is to engage the parker in an earnest conversation and convince them of the error of their ways. Which I suppose would be very unsafe in many parts of the country. Just another reason we need automated robot cars.
That’s the other part of what makes it so frustrating - the sense of powerlessness. We are made aware every day in so many ways that we have no power to affect anything, but the bad parkers (like the bad drivers) sort of rub our noses in it.
Automated robot cars, you say? 
I used to get upset about stuff like this.
But hey, why let the other guy live rent-free in my head?
Besides, I never know the details of why they did what they did. Did they have to park poorly because of the person next to them, who parked poorly, but is gone now? Was the parking lot covered with snow, leaving no visible lines at the time they parked? That’s happened to me plenty in the past. Maybe they’d just been hit with a migraine and it was all they could do to just safely park the car, and get out.
I’ve been much happier since I decided to let it go when I see stuff like that.
YMMV, of course.
Many moons ago, I had a fairly new Mercedes cut me off entering a turn lane to go into a shopping center. I honked the horn and gave the appropriate hand gesture and the dildo in the Benz gave me the “Oops, my bad” return sign.
I parked my car (correctly and well within the lines) and did my business. When I got back to my car, guess who parked on top of the line within inches of my driver’s door?
Yep, Dildo-boy’s Benz.
Guess who needed to see his paint and body man later that day?
I don’t normally advocate such behavior, but I was boiling mad. This is the only time I’d ever done anything like that.
I would posit that you accrued more bad karma for those actions than he did for his.
Well, I don’t believe in karma, so I don’t know how to respond.
Yeah, I’m still working on that. I agree with you about the bad karma, though. I have this theory that people who pull a lot of these stunts don’t know no better, and I do, so for me to sink to their level, I have to ignore what I was taught to be right, and that isn’t right. I’m still working on figuring out a way to appreciate having been taught right from wrong, in a world where wrong seems to make your life easier.
Well, if karma works both ways, maybe what I did was karmic payback for past digressions the dildo was guilty of.
Beautifully said. Are folks’ worlds really so stress-free, so devoid of despair and bleakness, that they go looking for ways to be angry?
Way I see it, it really isn’t that hard to have tolerance for these people. The simple decision to have tolerance for them is all it takes, and suddenly you’ve eliminated one more source of high blood pressure.
You may have been inside the lines, but you were deliberately incosiderate to other folks. You went out of your way to be inconsiderate to them. That’s unethical.
Daniel
I view this in the same way I view people hanging out in the left lane at 65MPH to “block” speeders. While I often drive over the posted limit, I keep right and don’t interfere with other drivers. Until someone is tailgating me when I cannot get over to the right, they are not interfering with my driving. I don’t necessarily like it, but I let the cops take care of simple speeding, and I’ll call 911 if I think someone is driving recklessly.
Same for parkers who take two spots. If they are willing to go to a lot in a closed store, 100’s of feet away and across the street, in a lot that has plenty of open spots, they are simply not interfering with my parking. You have no idea why they did that but more importantly it doesn’t affect your ability to park in any way.
If the OP involved a busy lot in front of a store, I’d be much more sympathetic. I might even bring it to the store’s attention. But it seems that in this case, it is the OP who is behaving anti-socially.
But how it actually goes is I make the decision to let it go over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…
and sometimes I get tired of letting it go and wonder why people have to be such shits; why they can’t just do the right thing.
Like I said, I’m working on it. 
That’s the important part!
To be fair, I’ve got my own peeves (one of which morphed into a monster in the Pit recently, though I won’t link to it). Usually I satisfy myself with some invective and move on.
After a few harrowing experiences, I’ve decided it’s best for everyone if I don’t communicate my displeasure unless I’m willing to go all the way with it. I’m not going to bitch about coworkers, for example, unless it’s at the point where I’m willing to get them fired; and then I’ll get my ducks in a row and present the case in an honest, effective way to get them gone. I’ve done it twice in fifteen years. I’ve never been bothered enough by parking to go all in, but if I did, it’d take the form of a police report or a call to a towing agency. If the police would be unlikely to do what I wanted them to do, then I’d reevaluate my anger.
Daniel