A California Driver Works to Annoy Idahoans

I saw this outside a grocery store while shopping over the weekend.  The driver was nowhere to be found.  I watched for a few minutes.  That’s a no-parking zone you’re looking at.  There were temporary California plates on the vehicle.  I don’t know who was driving and I don’t know the motivation for parking in a fire lane.  It won’t stop me from making some assumptions.

I hope the driver doesn’t believe they’ve come here from out of state and will do as they please.  As if they’re doing us a favor by being here and deserve special privileges because of where they’re from.  Most of the West Coast transplants I know are really fine people.  They also realize that some of their fellow transplants haven’t helped the situation.

The parking faux pas feeds the stereotype of the callous Californian.

Increasingly it looks like our culture has entered a phase where everyone is out for themselves.

I increasingly have disdain for younger Americans.  I realize there are jackasses in every age demographic, but in my neighborhood, I witness increasingly self-absorbed and entitled behavior.  The young and mostly healthy park in the closest available spot, leaving older neighbors the longest walk when parking and often unloading groceries.

Over the weekend, I watched a new twenty-something neighbor move in.  When he arrived with his couch, he parked the truck over a spot marked for the handicapped.  Just because someone is at the grocery store doesn’t mean they won’t need that spot within a few minutes.  I have two disabled neighbors.  One is 82 years old and has been battling cancer for the last two years.  The truck didn’t move for nearly an hour as the new guy kept bringing his unpacking trash out and loading the box.

Someone will doubtless argue that he’s perhaps disabled.  Mentally, I suppose.  He bounded up and down a stairway easily.  Let’s stop the constant search to excuse bad choices.

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