get out of my spot!

I have a confession to make:  I am absolutely the kind of person who will make your car alarm go off if I see you parking in the parent spots without a car seat in the back.  Yes, it's immature.  Yes, it's unnecessary.  I've been told that two wrongs don't make a right.  But sometimes two wrongs make a very pregnant, hormonal woman feel like justice has been done.

That being said, this seems to be an issue that raises some hackles, both on the sides of tired parents with young children, and on the side of Average Joe Blow, who seems to be sick of not meriting any special treatment.  This blogger wrote a post on this subject and boy did her readers let her have it!   I found this comment particularly venomous:

"This is the dumbest complaint I've ever heard. If the weather is like it is in summer and I have been looking around a carpark for awhile. I'm going to park in that spot.

I hope I never end up so self entitled about procreating/having kids.

It's not the parents god given right to be treated special because they have kids.

I should be upset because there is no "non-kid" parking. See some dumbass kid run in front of my car or have some parent and their latest designer pram scratch my nice car. Isn't that a stupid idea? Thought so.

Many people have had kids and did not need to have pathetic special car parking spots for them. I think parent parking should be given to disabled people. Someone who actually needs it."

Signed, Over Entitled Parents.

First of all, genius, it's all "non-kid" parking.  You can park anywhere you can squeeze your ride in, because there's NOTHING PREVENTING YOU FROM DOING SO.

On the other hand, I'd like enough room in between my car and yours to open the door all the way so my kid can climb in without hurting herself.  I don't like to park next to people who can't center their cars when parking because of this.  And sadly, it's a lot more likely that I'd have to squeeze one of my daughters through a space barely big enough for their tiny bodies out in General Parking than it is in the parents spots.

I mean, lets look at this objectively.  Closest to the entrance of any business are spots for vehicles driven by people with special needs.  These needs range from general handicap spots, to parent parking, to reserved police spots, to loading zones for fricks sake.  Is this guy trying to tell me that it's ok to park in any one of these on a beautiful summer day just because we're all equal?  No, I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way.  There are certain people who have certain parking needs.  You wouldn't expect the guy delivering the cases of Coke to park at the back of the lot, would you?  You wouldn't expect the police officer to walk a shoplifter almost a kilometre through traffic to his cruiser, would you?  You wouldn't expect your grandmother with the wheelchair to have to park hundreds of feet away.  And you wouldn't want your own older children to have to negotiate large, often crowded, above all DANGEROUS parking lots while you struggle with recalcitrant strollers for your younger children... WOULD YOU?  

When it comes right down to it, this is simply ignorance rearing it's ugly head once again.  People who don't have kids, can't understand fully the offense they incur when they callously take a parent reserved parking spot.  It's not their fault.

What is their fault is when they use that ignorance as an excuse to make someone else's day a little more shitty.  And if I can return that favor back to you by kicking your tire, and making you come out and shut off your car alarm, well at least you won't have to walk too far, right?