I Park In Family Spaces Even When I’m Out Solo

Hello, everyone. I am that douchebag. You probably know me as the woman who parks her car in the “reserved for families” spot up near the front of the grocery store even though my child is at school and the rest of my family doesn’t even live in the same state as me.

And I am not sorry.

The way I think of it is this; if you reserve a spot for people with children, but don’t specify where the child has to be at the time of parking a vehicle in that spot I will take you at your word and park there. After all, I do have a kid, she’s just in math class right now. Sometimes I leave my kid’s booster seat in the car, though, because the only douche bigger than a solo-parking douche is the douche that takes offense at this, and I believe that my car would get keyed otherwise.

Let me add my caveats really quick: I don’t park in the expectant mother parking spots. There weren’t any of these when I was an expectant mother, but despite my raging bitterness, you mothers-to-be can have those to yourself. Sciatic nerve pain is a major bitch, after all. So too with edematous pontoon feet.

Similarly, you won’t find me in a family spot on crowded days or weekends or if there are close spots nearby that I could easily use. I’ll only park if there’s more than one and at least two other spots are empty. Beyond that, all’s fair in love and lazy people parking spots.

This was going to be a one-off thing, to be honest. I had to run into the store to get a refill on my daughter’s asthma meds, and it was kind of urgent so I parked right up front, not noticing that I’d grabbed a family spot. As I was heading back to my car I found a woman waiting for me. She then proceeded to give me quite the tutting for parking my car in a place reserved for Denalis and entitled parents.

“You wouldn’t park in a handicapped spot, would you?”

My friends, my eyes rolled so far back into my head I thought I would pass out. First of all, I could park in a handicapped spot if I wished. I’ve gone far enough to fill out an application for the placard and get a doctor’s note, but I never followed through because despite my short stature I am still able-bodied and I think I would be a pretty huge wang if I went the distance with it.

Second, having a couple kids is not the same thing as needing specially equipped access to a building for health reasons. If you think that it is, then you are a bigger wang than I could ever hope to be and I wish you a terrible day.

I told the woman this, though I peppered in a few more curse words and a hilarious bit about prophylactics and lupus that I can’t quite remember verbatim right now. But the point is this; thanks to that woman, I make it my job to park in those spots.

I know that out there is a wiener who thinks that me parking in a gimmicky courtesy family spot is the same as me parking in a necessary required-by-law handicapped spot, so I do it in the hopes that it will piss that wiener off.

If you are not that wiener, but you need an upfront spot, all you have to do is ask me to move my car. I will either comply or pretend to not hear you, but it’ll probably be the former.

Hey, it doesn’t hurt to ask.

(Image: Antony McAuley/Shutterstock)