So you’re in the parking lot of a crowded mall, looking for a spot that’s not in the boonies.
A couple walks toward their car and you wait respectfully for them to get in. It should be quick because they don’t have any purchases…
But wait, they climb into their car, AND JUST SIT THERE. They don’t appear to be doing anything. This happens more often than what seems, well, normal.
Mybe it’s just my luck, but it seems that people deliberately take longer when they know someone is waiting. We’re a family of four (kids age 7 and 10) and we can get into the car, buckle up, start it, and be backing out in 30 seconds.
I don’t consider myself any less patient than the next guy, but I cannot fathom what people do for the 3 - 5 minutes between the time they get in the car and the car backs up.
I would like to hear from people who have noticed this phenomenon, but I would really like to hear from someone who has made me sit, and sit, and sit, and sit, and sit, and sit, and sit, and sit, and sit, and sit, and sit, and sit, and sit…
Amen! Just tonight I was trying to find a place to park on campus and I saw a car with its lights on in a parking spot. I figured they might be leaving, so I stopped my car a decent distance from theirs and waited. I waited a good long time, because sometimes it’s hard to find spots close to my dorm.
Eventually I gave up and drove past to find another spot. AS SOON as I drove past the car it backed out and left. I just don’t think it was a coincidence.
I’ll admit, I do that at school if we just had a fun game of “parking lot shark.” It freaks me out to have a car, one foot behind me, following slowly, marking my every move, and waiting for me to get into my car. Why do they do that? Circle the lot a few times and try to catch me. Don’t make me worry about your bumper clipping my knees, for Christ’s sake.
If they’re going to behave that way, then I have no problem making them wait. However, if they just happened to pull up as I was preparing to leave, I would do so quickly and politely.
Maybe it only seems longer than normal, because you’re in a hurry to get the car parked and get going with the shopping?
I notice people doing this now and then, too, and I notice it more around holiday shopping time. I think it’s more a perception of extreme slowness, because I’m in such a frustrated hurry to get into the mall.
And for the people who really do just sit there for several minutes, maybe they’re checking a map, or arguing over where to go next. People argue a lot in cars! Maybe they got so sick of trying to shop with their teenage daughter that they’ve given up and come to wait for her in the car. Or maybe they’re evil, and are just doing it to piss people off.
I hate it when people wait for a space up close when there are plenty of available spaces not 30 yards away. Like it would kill them to walk for 60 seconds.
I hate lugging bags around while I shop so I make frequent trips back to the car to drop them off. If I notice someone following me I will let them know that I’m not leaving. However, I don’t always notice. One time I dropped the bags in the trunk, closed it, and headed back towards the mall. This guy jumped out of his car and started screaming and cursing at me and told me I’d better move my car because he took the time to follow me all the way to my spot (thank Og his wife (or girlfriend) was with him and yelled at him to ‘stop acting like an ass and get back in the car’ because I don’t know what I would have done (besides panic, I mean).
That said, if someone is waiting I get in, buckle my seatbelt, and move the car and leave all the farting around for while I’m waiting in the line to get out of the mall. (If no one is waiting it takes me forever to get out of the spot. Get comfy, buckle seatbelt, sip of coffee, choose a CD, more coffee, light a ciggie (when I’m a smoker - nevermind), more coffee, adjust the temp ---- you get the idea )
It depends if they are stalking you all the way to your car. If they going to be that obnoxious vs walking an extra minute or so from farther, readily available spaces (like I usually do, I hate crowded parking) I’ll take my sweet time getting going. If they’re no one pushing me to get a move on I’ll just scoot.
It’s simply amazing the lengths perfectly mobile, non-handicapped people will go to to not to travel an extra hundred feet.
Definitely have this syndrome in Hong Kong. If I’ve got my kid with me in the front passenger seat, I’ll ask her to get a map out (any book will do) and study it, when we’re waiting for a shopper to leave. Any I’ll never indicate - it’s like red rag to a bull. The more you seem like you’re not waiting for them, the better chance there is of the Merc driver leaving quickly.
I haven’t really noticed people taking longer, but I usually avoid this scenario.
My husband, whom I love dearly, is one of those people and it drives me crazy.
It is like some weird obsessive competition.
He’ll drive and drive trying to find that perfect ‘up close and personal’ spot.
I am the opposite and will tend to park farther away because yes indeed, there is usually no hassle finding a spot in the outer reaches.
This particular behavior – not giving up a space to someone waiting for it – really gets under my skin, as it’s among the 4 million things I never resolved with my father before his death. It was one (of many) of his practices to fuck with people – we’d all be loded into the car (5 of us with mom and 3 kids), and he absolutely would not give up the space while someone waited for it. He would wait 10 minutes or more with all of us shouting at him to go, smiling as he waited.
So yes, he enjoyed it. He was a basically poor immigrant, in a low wage drudge job, and I think this was a way he found to wield some kind of power, petty as it was.
Perhaps they are on the job, and have to enter their expenses before they leave, perhaps they are listening to a favorite song on the radio, perhaps they are waiting for a companion – it doesn’t matter. There is no legal or moral reason that they must drive away the instant they get in the car for your convenience. As others have noted, there are plenty of parking spaces available a couple of rows father out.
If the parking lot is crammed full, and people are circling looking for any spot at all, it is courteous to vacate as soon as possible, but they may have perfectly valid reasons for waiting.
I have often wondered the same thing. I get in the car put on my seatbelt, start the car and reverse out. How people (particularly people on their own) can get in a car and take minutes to reverse out has baffled me. Last week at work one of the women I work with revealed that she deliberately dawdles if someone has followed her to her parking spot because thay see her walking to her car. I thought this was very unimpressive behaviour.
Actually now that I think about I will wave down people in the parking lot to point out that I am about to leave a premium spot so they don’t drive past. I will then rush to get out of the spot so as not to hold up traffic.
Why do carparks turn reasonable people into idiots?
Fuck, I loathe and detest the urge in some to keep cruising the closest aisle until someone moves. Double boo-hiss points if you sit there with your indicators on because someone walked towards a car!
Jeeeeez you look like a no life plonker if you have 10 minutes to follow someone leaving a mall. I will sit there and light my fag and fiddle with the radio station …just “because”, if you follow me to see where I’m parked.
CHILL OUT! You will find a parking space eventually! No one ever died waiting.
The tendencies and syndromes I’m seein’ in this thread are creepin’ me out.
I once got hung up in a parking lot because the woman behind me wouldn’t let me out. Apparently, she felt that the guy coming the other way had a better chance of getting my parking spot due to angle or something, so she simply pulled up close so I couldn’t back up more than a couple feet without hitting her bumper.
Apparently, she intended to simply wait out the other person, then let me out and get my spot.
Had to park the car again, get out, and get downright nasty with the woman before she’d back the hell up and let me out. She seemed surprised and a bit dismayed that I would react in such a way. Finally, she relented, and backed up.
And then she took my parking spot.
Mostly it convinced me that some folks wandering around loose today are not only selfish, but downright solipsistic…
You know what is worse then finding somewhere to park? Not being able to walk!
Why does being on a “travelator” mean your legs no longer work? It’s an incline! It won’t kill you to walk!
Please don’t just stand there like you think you just won “I conquered useless crappy technology…watch me stand”. WALK!!! Just because the the surface beneath your feet is moving doesn’t mean you can’t!
Walk you lazy fuckers! Don’t just stand there in la-la land (for fucks sake why can’t you feel my eyes burning a hole in your back? Move you lazy fuckeads!!!).
If you promise to walk you can have my car park next time! Promise
One explanation of what might be taking people so long to get out of a spot–they might be making a phone call.
It’s now illegal in many places to talk on a cell phone while driving, unless you have a hands-free device. I don’t have one, and even if I did, I’d probably avoid using it unless I had to. So, you might see me get into my car and not drive away for a couple of minutes, but it’s because I have to make a call.
Or maybe I’m eating something, or consulting a map, or going over my to-do list.
I avoid doing these things if I’m in a truly crowded location. And if I have to do something, I’ll usually tell the parking shark that I’ll be a few minutes before I leave. Nobody’s ever gotten nasty with me, fortunately.
But making people wait just because they’re waiting for your spot? That’s just shitty. Parking sharking is rude behavior to be sure, but as Miss Manners says, the appropriate response to rudeness is not more rudeness!
Really, and on both sides, the parkers and the waiters. Since when di following a pedestrian up a row of parked cars become “stalking”? If I SEE an empty space ahead I’ll get it. And then there’s the one’s who dawdle to punish those rude enought to wait for their space.
There’s a whole lot more emotional investment in this process than there needs to be.
(thank Og his wife (or girlfriend) was with him and yelled at him to ‘stop acting like an ass and get back in the car’ because I don’t know what I would have done (besides panic, I mean).
)