Five for Friday

I have a problem. Or rather, my coworkers have a problem.

Every morning, with reliable and predictable lack of precision, there will be at least one vehicle (if not more) parked in what I call "pretend spots" when I will pull into my office's parking lot. This isn't an issue of the parking lot being full and the employee is late so they steer into a fire lane and call it good. This is people parking in nonexistent parking spots while the parking lot is half empty because the fire lanes are closer to the entrance. This failure in parking is the first thing to greet me as I prepare my day, and as a "rule person" that means I generally start my day on a sour note. If I take the effort to find a real parking spot every day, why can't the people I work with extend the same courtesy?

But here's my dilemma. I have an abnormally exaggerated sense of justice - I have a strange urge to see everyone get what they deserve.* Every time I see a car parked in the fire lane, I want to ram it at the fastest speed my car can obtain. I never follow through on this impulse and there are five reasons why.

1. I don't want to hurt Steve. Who's Steve? Steve is my car. Yes, I know what you're thinking, I named my car Steve. Why that name? Because it is practically a clone of the car my friend Steve drove when I lived in Boise. It's a good car, and I don't want to damage it.

2. Collateral damage. With my luck, my car and the offender's car would not be the only two vehicles to suffer loss. Inevitably, there would be another car on the other side, one that is graciously parked in a designated parking spot, that would get caught (or crushed) in the crossfire.

3. The fear of getting caught. This fear kept me out of trouble as a teenager. During those years, my fear of getting caught prevented me from participating in some very bad things and steered me away from other not as bad but still slightly mischievous activities. In some respects, I haven't grown out of that phase.

4. Those fire lanes exist for a reason. True story. Parking lots are designed with fire lanes to give emergency vehicles room to safely navigate their way in and out in situations where their services are needed. If a fire engine clips your car because you were parked in a fire lane, they are not responsible for the damages to your car. You are. There is a part of me (a small part because it's not good for business) that hopes we have an emergency that requires assistance from the fire department. And in this make believe scenario, I hope that the fire crews hit every car parked in a fire lane on their way out of our lot.

5. I'm passive-aggressive. As much as I would receive an immense sense of satisfaction if one of the parking violators get their car damaged or towed, it is far more entertaining for me to mock them. And trust me, my office mate and I have laughed a lot this winter at all the parking fails we've observed.

* You don't need to remind me. I know this obsession is not healthy. I'm working on it.