Why the Hell Is Everyone Suddenly Backing Up Into Parking Spaces?

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

I promised I wouldn’t get political here, but there is an issue ripping our nation into two frayed halves and I can stay silent on it no longer.

I’m talking, of course, about drivers who are compelled to back into parking lot spaces and the rest of us who pull in forwards like normal human beings are supposed to do.

Just what the hell is going on, backer-uppers? There wasn’t enough confusion and chaos in Trader Joe’s parking lot for you? Now you need to drive past an open spot, then suddenly stop, throw it in reverse, and take 4 or 5 attempts to back into it successfully while the rest of us wonder what in the holy hell this idiot (you) is doing?

Look, I know we’re all excited to have backup cameras in our cars. But just because we have technology doesn’t mean we should use it. Just ask Oppenheimer. Or anyone in an office where someone has microwaved leftover tilapia. 

I’ve got enough parking lot drama to deal with without this maniacal maneuver in the mix. I just hit 50 years of age and when I come out of the store, I don’t simply forget where I parked — I can’t even remember how I got to the store in the first place. Did even I drive here? Maybe I walked? Parachuted in?

Oh yes, I can hear you BU-ers protesting: Dan, if I back into a space I can get out sooo much faster. My question to you: Who is in a rush to get back home? Eight hours sitting at your kitchen table “office,” hunched over a laptop in a position that will surely require corrective spinal surgery in a year isn’t enough for you?

The only use case that makes sense to me for getting out faster is if you are planning to rob everyone inside the place and need to make a quick getaway. Well, I hate to tell you that Stop and Shop beat you to that whole robbery thing. Did I just buy three avocados and a roll of toilet paper or did I pay for Spring tuition at med school?

I don’t know why backing into spaces bugs me so much. But it just does. I asked my therapist to help me make sense of it, but he just licked himself. (My therapist is my dog Clark, and he is a terrible listener.)

I guess at its core, backing up is unnatural and a “me-first” slap in the face to societal norms. Like standing in the middle of an escalator instead of to the side so people can pass. Or leaving the house wearing Crocs.

This all came to a head (or rear) recently at CVS, that place where once-noble trees go to become the world’s longest receipts. This is a little hard to explain, but as I pulled into the lot, another car sat sideways across three spots. The driver was in the middle of some kind of sweeping maneuver so that he could, you guessed it, back into a spot. I was trying to pull headfirst into one of the spots he was occupying and…it was a mess.

I was actively encouraged by my AP Physics teacher not to bother taking the test, so I can’t explain exactly what happened, but somehow I ended up in my spot and after six attempts — six! — the backer-upper gave up entirely and drove off. 

But not before he let me know how upset he was. He jammed on the brakes right in front of my wife and me and began screaming.

Lisa, who knows a crazy person when she sees them (she’s married to me, after all) kept walking. I did not. 

He yelled and I yelled right back. That’s right, I become quite the tough guy when the other person is as old as me and we both know that throwing a punch would do 10 times more damage to ourselves than to the other guy’s face.

“You’re a terrible parker!” he screamed. “Me?” I retorted. “Yes you!” he expounded.

(This exchange will surely one day be studied alongside the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858.) 

We went back and forth like that for a few minutes and he eventually drove off. I laughed, delighted in ruining this backward jerk wad’s day, and carried on with my CVS business. Then as we walked back to our car, I saw someone scowling from their idling vehicle at the last open spot in the lot.

It seems that some idiot pulled in crookedly and was taking up two spaces. 

It was, of course, our car. 

When are people in this town going to learn how to park?