The Back Forty

I’ve come to the conclusion that people just can’t be bothered to park their own cars anymore. With valet parking available virtually everywhere, who needs to park? No more circling like a vulture for a front row space and if you can recall an irate Evelyn Couch in Fried Green Tomatoes, it’s no wonder that more places from malls to YMCA’s are offering the service. I dare ask though, are American’s becoming lazy and down right spoiled?

I remember summers with my mom and her parking lot strategy. She always parked in “the back forty” and happily chirped about how she enjoyed walking as my brother and I shuffled our feet and grumbled across the lot. It didn’t matter if it was raining cats and dogs, or if there were a million open spaces in the first and second rows. We always managed to be the lone car in the back of the lot, usually next to a curb or a pole. I’d like to say that parking far away was a miniature lesson for my brother and me, about something deeper, like the importance of exercise or saving the front spots for expecting mothers. I’d like to say that. Looking back now I think that maybe the real reason was anxiety associated with parking.

How many times can I remember pulling into an ill-fated spot with my father’s Crown Victoria. The uncertainty looming before me, will my hood scrape along the side of that car? It’s like peering over the starboard side of The Titanic and watching hesitantly for the moment of impact with the iceberg. Then there’s the fact that generally speaking, parents with car loads of children park as close as possible, creating scary scenario number two. While backing up out of a spot, watching cautiously the bow of the car for impact, I fail to see the child run across the stern.

These anxieties might lead one to park in some remote spot in the lot or to turn to valet. Although it may be a sign of a deadly sin, there are advantages to allowing someone else to park for you.

For starters, there’s the problem of having too much stuff to carry. It’s one thing to tote one’s bag or pocket book, lap top even. But it is another to have the bag, the lap top, the diaper bag, the book bag, the report for work, the lunch bag and- did we forget the kid? Valet parking allows us to dump, dump, and dump at the curb and “forget-about-it.” Curb side service also makes us feel like royalty I suppose.

Some men are still chivalrous. Some men drop their wives off at the front door. For most of us, no-one is going to be dropping us off at the door. For those majority of us, isn’t it nice to have the red-carpet treatment once in awhile?

So while I speculate on the impending disease of lazy to strike Americans, I can’t help but support valet parking. Kathy Bates captures it well as Evelyn Couch; the furry of being ousted out of “our spot”. “Hello! My blinker was on!” Let’s save some car scratches. Hell, let’s save our blood pressure. Let’s let someone park for us once in awhile-occasionally.