The bell that signals the end of the school day doesn’t sound like freedom; it sounds like a starting pistol. I don’t sprint to my car, I just wait for the battle that is about to happen. Everyone starts heading for the doors, and it is a mad race to get out of the parking lot. You either beat the bell, or you get ready to wait.
I wasn’t fast enough, and now I have to pay the consequences.
By the time I hit the asphalt, the parking lot had already transformed into a sticky, slow nightmare. The sun wasn’t making anything better, turning the entire parking lot into a hot, glaring mess. Every single car was locked in a slow motion migration, a cluster of hundreds of cars idling. Everybody was collectively inching toward the exit.
My car was parked right in the middle of the lot, so someone was going to have to let me into the line. It took a couple minutes for me to even get in the line, and I had to force my way in. I immediately joined the longest, slowest conga line in the world.
The parking lot problem is basically just a combination of sheer volume and clashing egos. Too many people are trying to occupy the same spot at the same time, and it is every man for themself. You have hundreds of cars all attempting to execute maneuvers for their own benefit.
The worst offenders out of anyone are the people who let everyone into the line. I could be waiting in line for ten minutes, and a driver will let somebody else into the very front. Now I have to wait even longer.
Twenty minutes. That’s how long it took me to travel maybe 300 feet. I finally hit the main road and it felt like freedom, the relief was great, like a physical weight off of my shoulders. I looked in my rear view mirror, and the parking lot still looked like a war zone. The traffic wasn’t over, though. If you are unlucky enough to have to turn down the main road, your commute time just doubled.
