I Judge: #1 in My Ongoing List of Things that Irk, Annoy and Irritate (in case you didn’t get the point with the first verb)

This is probably more a pet peeve list, but I’m thinking about the assumptions I make, which do, in fact, constitute judgments – speculative – but judgments nonetheless, so here is my first installment in “I Judge”:

1. Parking sideways – a corollary to but even worse infringer than the double-space parker: on observation (at least where I live), cars don’t do this, even vans generally don’t:  it’s the SUV-Jeep-Suburban drivers among us who park sideways, taking up three spaces or more, as if parking in these United States were not considered a cooperative endeavor (it is); as if there were no cultural norms about such things (there are); as if to convey cool (it isn’t).  I behold and judge: front-end in parking is the easiest of all, so what’s your problem?  Can you simply not be bothered?  Or did you never learn how to navigate that boat-mobile in reverse?  Are you phobic about going backward?  Are you a member of Starsky & Hutch and just didn’t have time to park, simply abandoning your vehicle wherever it stopped in your hurry to save us from the world?  

But as I said at the beginning, this is about my judging, so some truth-telling of my own is in order, I suppose: where I most commonly view this phenomena (in fact where I am looking upon it right now) is from my office window upon the church parking lot during the week (which means it is usually empty, save the random non-parking parker such as today’s guest).  The funny part is that I would even notice or care.  The interesting observation part is that even with an empty parking lot, the cars almost always park as if they’re at Wal-Mart: they pull in front first.  And I suspect that the big-vehicle sideways folk do the same when they’re at Wal-Mart: take up three spaces by going it sideways.

But no one else is in the parking lot, so why should I care or even notice?  In my defense, if parked in the usual way, I scarce take notice of the vehicle as lots of folk commute together from the juncture of this church parking lot, which is a fine use of a largely empty space designed for the purpose (of vehicle leaving).  The sideways car, outside the norm, draws my attention, keeps me wondering and watching to make sure no one has need of the preacher (or more often, tour guide to our little country church with a bit of local history to claim).

And, I admit, the assumption of the other, a traveler I discern from the carry-all on top, that the space won’t be needed; that there won’t be a Monday gathering with a little old lady left to cross the road because two extra spaces were taken up by our unknown big-vehicle driver, galls me – it’s an accurate assumption, but it galls nevertheless.

When did I become such a law & order gal?  When did observation of cultural norms become such an obsession with me?  I don’t know.  All I know is that I’m trying to do a bit of work on a day off and that blasted SUV there at the edge of my peripheral vision drives me to distraction.

Silly me.  I wonder: what are you judging today?