So I had to run to Albertson's a minute ago to purchase some cream and half-n-half (homemade ice cream tomorrow!). As anyone who has ever visited the Albertson's on 23rd and 39th in Salt Lake City has undoubtedly noted, the parking spaces are quite roomy, to the point of being palatial. You see, not only are the spaces themselves wide, but there are also, in lieu of the standard single yellow stripes, rather large buffer zones - six inches of asphalt enclosed by TWO yellow stripes. The practical upshot of this is that it is virtually impossible to park in such a manner as to obstruct the parking ability of another driver.
But as I'm sure you can guess, I wouldn't be writing this post if somebody hadn't managed to do exactly that.
I pulled into the parking lot and saw a pull-through spot right by the door I want to go in. (I have a thing for pull-through spots, because I hate backing up in parking lots, especially at night.) As I pulled in, I noticed that, gee, that car next to me is parked rather close, but didn't think much of it until I rolled up my windows, opened my door and attempted to get out.
So I went in and procured the sought-after dairy items, and returned to my car to find the owner of the BMW standing there staring at it while his wife returned their shopping cart. I walked past them (with a perfectly civil, nay, friendly greeting, I may add) and made quite a show of squeezing carefully into my car.
As I drove off, a note of bitter vindictiveness may have entered into my mind, and I may have hoped for an instant that their door was now slightly scratched or even dented, such unfortunate happening being no more than their due, but I'm sure this tacit admission can be our little secret.
The worst parking I've been a victim of was a Honda mini-SUV. I was just finishing up putting my frozen purchases into the back of my car, and in swings this Honda. I look over at how much space there was between my car and the Honda (roughly six inches), shook my head, and sucked my teeth. I was expecting the driver of the offending vehicle to notice that "oh, that guy can't get in, I'd better re-park".
A mumbled "sorry" as she RAN for the door was all I got.
I resisted the temptation, once I'd contorted my way over from the passenger side, to make a complete pig's breakfast of backing out and thus leave huge dents all over her vehicle.
So, in other words, you pulled through into a space that left yourself maybe 8 inches to get yourself out of and back into your car. Seems to me that maybe you should've, I dunno, not pulled into the space next to someone so horrendously parked?
Yeah, the person parked badly, but parking next to that is just asking for trouble.
Granted, parking next to the BMW was perhaps a bad decision. But given my knowledge of this parking lot's roominess, I didn't realize it was as bad as it was until I was actually halfway out my door.
We have a black volvo in the parking area outside our house that is more often badly parked than not. Unfortunately, there are limited parking spaces, so your options are to either walk a lot farther than you want or to park slightly off so that you don't smash the volvo and don't irritate the person on the other side of you.