While l have mused about parking in France before, it is just so amazingly fascinating to me that it deserves further consideration. I don’t get it. Sorry, It is clearly my Canadian upbringing.  Sorry again. Did I say I was sorry?

To me, painted parking lines are not a mere “suggestion”. They have been painted deliberately and precisely (I hope) to make clear what is expected by society of the parker. If there is a derivation,  there is a cascading effect through not only the parking lot, but society. It the lines are not followed, it leads quickly to anarchy.

I respect the parking code.  I take pride in my parking. And much to the chagrin of my wife, I have been known to repark and reposition if not fully satisfied with my initial park. It is self respect. As the Staple Singers said loud and clear in their 1971  Memphis recorded song “Respect Yourself” (lyrics by Luther Thomas Ingram), “If you don’t respect yourself ain’t nobody gonna give a good cahoot”. It is no more complicated than that.

The low water mark to me was the photograph as part of this blog.  I swear that we (in the white vehicle) parked first and there was an empty space to the immediate right. We came out the store to see the car on the right! What was the parker thinking? How did  the parker escape the vehicle? To this day I shake my head with unanswered questions.

This is to say nothing of the creative street parking I have witnessed over the years. A traffic island appears to be fair game as does any other side walk or surface where an immovable  concrete bollard does not physically prevent a car from going.  (Ok, once I moved a trash can and parked inside a fenced off construction zone, but that was at night and I was not inconveniencing anyone. And sorry if I did.) And to say nothing further of the complete inability for people (all over the world to be fair) to back into a parking spot where going in forward appears to be a challenge enough for most.

The mentality of French parkers is just one of the many things that I fear I will just never understand.