Not in the Pink When It Comes to Parking

Loftier minds than mine would probably define the important issues of the day as war . . . peace . . . hunger . . . deregulation . . . .

What really matters is finding a parking space.

More and more, I spend my time trolling grocery store parking lots, doing 4 mph, waiting for someone’s--anyone’s--brake lights to come on.

“There . . . is that Nova leaving? . . . . He’s . . . no . . . yes! . . . He’s . . . and I’ve--oh, happy day--I’ve got first dibs on the spot . . . .”

It doesn’t get any better than that.

Last Saturday at the Buenaventura Mall, I circled the lot, hoping to happen on a free slot. As usual, I covetously eyed the vacant handicapped spot each time I made a circuit; then felt the same pang of guilt for thinking the same unlofty thought.

Suddenly, near Macy’s, I slammed on the brakes. There was a sign, a new pink and white sign hovering over an open space that read “Expectant Mothers.” The lines on the asphalt were even painted pink.

Dare I?

Did you have to be showing? How would they check?

After all, all mothers are “expectant” mothers until the day we die, so to speak.

After I did or didn’t park in the expectant mother spot, I finally managed to exit my vehicle, only to brush too closely to a nearby car and set off its alarm. It was the continuously honking loud horn version. Effective, too. It sounded like a 3-year-old had been left alone in a parked car with the windows rolled up.

It was almost as vexing as the siren version that reminds you of World War II movies when the Nazis are closing in. Almost as frightening as the version in which the male authoritarian voice commands, “Stand back. Stand Back. Stand . . . .”

I leaned on the hood of a handy Plymouth Fury and waited for the lightheadedness to go away. It took a minute before I was able to go on inside to the Macy’s accessories sale.

There are just too many moral, emotional and traffic enforcement issues to grapple with in parking lots and at street curbs these days. Too many colors: yellow, blue, red, green, now pink.

Too many times: four-minute loading zones, 24-minute zones, one-hour, two-hour, three-hour, all-day, never from 6 to 9 a.m., always from 6 to 9 p.m., Sundays-and-national-holidays-OK zones.

But does that include Presidents Day too? How can you be sure?

It taxes my inner resources.

Another thing I worry about: not the vanishing ozone layer, but how does the traffic control officer who marks my rear right tire with chalk know if I legally and ethically moved my car up two parking spaces after an hour and 58 minutes in a two-hour zone? What if the chalk mark rolls around to the same place even though I moved my car?

In Ventura, it’s a minimum 20-buck ticket if you go nine minutes over in a two-hour zone. Trust me on this. But then it can be $35 for a similar garden-variety ticket in Thousand Oaks.

Now, my husband not only doesn’t find parking as stressful as I do, he enjoys competitive parking. He will blithely pass up a dozen free spots while he searches for just the perfect space.

“A perfect parking spot is one between two planters,” he explains. “Fewer dings.”

It must be one of those “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus” things.

He’ll park an extra hundred yards away at The Oaks mall for a ding-free slot. I’ll sit and stew in the passenger seat while he idles and considers the pros and cons of the two free spaces in a 10-acre lot.

It’s almost enough to make me commit a moving violation.

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Brenda Loree is a Times correspondent.