Would It Kill You To Walk 10 More Feet?

I'm ignoring what didn't happen for the MD basketball team tonight until I can compose myself and my thoughts. (haha, get it? Compose, just like I compose here...ok, so it's not funny).

So I was in Silver Spring this weekend at one of the strip malls in the area and parked my car about 4 rows of cars away from the store I was visiting. In other words, my car faced another car and then there was another set of cars facing each other before I'd reach the store. I was feeling energetic as I needed the exercise and just took the first spot I saw since there wasn't much to gain from parking any closer, and it's not like I was in any sort of rush on a Saturday morning.

I got back in my car and took a little bit of time starting it up because I had to arrange some items in the back seat before I left. When I started to do this, I noticed a car waiting for me to leave my parking spot. I actually started to laugh at the rediculousness (that's a fun word to say and write) of this whole situation.

It was early Saturday morning which means 2/3 of the parking lot was virtually empty!

So this driver waited about a minute or so for my spot, when she could have just taken one in the row behind me. Sure, maybe she had a problem walking the extra 10 feet any of the 20 other spots would have required her to do, but come on! It wasn't raining outside or anything like that.

There are obvious times when you should try to park as close as possible, like when it's raining, or you're picking up a box from IKEA, but even then you can drive up to the door for a few minutes. Actually, outside of poor weather and any health reasons, when is it actually worth it to park an entire row closer to the door? One row isn't worth it, but certainly if you see a spot become available at least five rows closer, than wait as long as you'd like for the spot.

I doubt it would have changed much for her to park somewhere else. In fact, if she had taken one of the spots in the row behind me, she would have been out of her car and halfway to any of the stores by the time I drove out of my spot. It doesn't bother me so much that she waited for my spot, but the next time you see an open spot, it's a better move to park there and start walking than wait for a spot that's a few feet closer.