Peeved

In the "Just Sayin’ Department"… One of my pet peeves is people who ignore lane markings in large parking lots... like at a mall or, in the case of P-Ville’s largest parking lot, Wally-World. Big corporations go to considerable expense to paint traffic lanes on/in their parking lots, put helpful LARGE YELLOW ARROWS on the asphalt to indicate the fact some lanes are ONE-WAY (surprise!), install stop-signs at parking lot intersections, yadda, yadda, yadda. Yet I continue to see idiots of all ages and both genders completely disregard said lines and traffic rules, in general, whenever they are in a parking lot. These people must have failed kindergarten, coz they simply can’t or won’t stay within the lines when they're coloring driving in a parking lot.

I don’t understand this phenomenon at all. Do people think they’re saving time by driving the WRONG WAY down a one-way lane? Or by cutting across eight to 18 rows in the MIDDLE of the parking lot, sometimes dodging or otherwise going around cars parked all by themselves, when there are CLEARLY MARKED traffic lanes? Are they simply not paying attention? Or are the “rules of the road” just for us Little People? Whatever it is, this flaunting of basic traffic rules and safety practices just pisses me right off. One of the first things I would do if I were King would be to install stocks, and lots of ‘em, at the main entrance to every mall in these United States for first-time-offenders, whipping posts for repeat offenders, and a gallows for chronic abusers. I’d also create an armed Parking Lot Enforcement cadre at each and every mall with over 500 parking spaces (thereby easing unemployment, in the process), with authority to “shoot on sight” for egregious offenders. So maybe we wouldn’t need the gallows, after all.

And what prompted this rant? Nothing special, as in a close-call or something similar. I just don't like idiocy.

(Image credits: Escalade Kiddy-Car, Worlds of Wonder; Stocks, Dan in Mr. Leahy’s Class in Beaverton, OR)