Was at the Barrington Superstore today and in the half hour I waited for my buddy, I watched three cars use the maternity(and infants up to 6 months)parking spaces. The first car was a woman who hadn’t seen menopause since WW2. Maybe she’s aiming to be the oldest new mom in the nursing home. The second car was a family of two infants who were more than three feet high and wearing Chucks. The third car was a woman with her screaming five year old kid. Maybe the infant was at home. Fuck, take all those goddamn pink signs down and replace them with more Handicapped spaces. In fact, mark the whole row that way. Baby boomers need their Depends.
—A Pointy Tree
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2009.
Time to start enforcing those bylaws…yeah right.
There’s no bylaw about pregnancy spaces. That’s all marketing on the part of the grocery stores.
Nothing wrong with making a courtesy space for expecting and new moms, but there’s no law that says you can’t park there. However, you are kind of a tit if you do and you are not preggo.
Teenage guys are especially bad for it as well. Well, teenage guys and girls – truth be told.
Tim’s right.
At least you need a permit to park in the handicapped spaces….and even then it’s easy enough to jack/acquire a permit and hang it in your window.
I know a few people who have handicapped friends who forgot their passes in their friends’ cars and the friends used the passes for like a month before the handicapped person got the pass back. I also know people who have handicapped children/elderly parents who, on a regular basis, use their passes when said handicapped person isn’t with them.
Shameful. Perhaps if more people parked a little farther away who were able, we wouldn’t be the fattest province in the country. The laziness is appalling.
…you’re complaining about a senior using a pregnant parking space? She could have both hips replaced for all you know.
While it’s douchey to park there if you’re not lugging a kid around inside you, pregnant women are not special snowflakes. They can walk the extra 20 feet. If they’re not supposed to be doing that, they should probably not be out shopping and walking around either.
I don’t think we’re the fattest province…. unless you consider all the preggo teens as ‘obese’ down south shore way.
Maybe that was a little harsh…. anyway, off topic.
If it’s used for families, whatever. I still don’t agree they should get a spot to begin with, but they are there and that’s because I’m not in charge…….
If they want the closest spot so damn bad, they should circle until they get one, just like the rest of us. it’s not like pressing the peddle for an extra potential 10-15 mins is going to tire them out.
Sorry to be a nerd and look it up but…
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-620-m/2005…
We ain’t the fattest, but we ain’t the fittest either.
oh, and to stay on topic, zZz, what’s the problem with having a spot near the door for pregnant ladies? Sure they CAN walk the extra distance, but it’s just a courtesy to not make them have to. It’s like offering up your seat on a bus so someone doesn’t have to stand. It’s just being polite.
there was this LONG bitch a while back about this….
I do believe kay was involved so you may not want to read all of it…..
the gyst was a jerk telling this lady off when she confronted him and asked “sir, when are you due”.
It is a courtesy but if the spot were taken up by another mother, she’d be out of luck anyways…. and have to walk all the same. I’m sure she would just park and wouldn’t have complained…. but she’d be just as able to circle around and wait for the other person to get out of the spot. that doesn’t really take much energy.
there’s also the issue of…. well mothers have a hard time… but so do the elderly, so they should get a spot or two.
Oh, and obese people have it rough as well…
they should have a spot.
well what about travelling with a blind person. It’s not fair to make them have to walk so far when they can’t see…. they should have spots too.
how about carpoolers? they’re doing their part and they have their own lanes for travel. why not throw a spot their way?
If you want to fucking color-code all the spots in the parking lot, have at.
Oh yeah, I kind of remember that one. In the spirit of politeness and civility, I don’t think it’s appropriate to bitch out a person for parking in the courtesy spot when they are not pregnant either. Parking in handicap spots without a permit though….different story.
Well zZz, I guess that’s why I like the idea of the pregnant spot being used as a courtesy spot for whoever feels they really need it. I avoid it with the hopes that people you described use it instead. I don’t mind walking and prefer to park farther away from the entrance so I don’t have to circle around for 15 minutes.
Learn to walk most of you pregnant women could use a little extra walk. Give me a break being pregnant is not a sickness nor does it make you disabled. Your pregnant suck it up.
I never really understood the concept of having one of those parking spots closer to the entrance of say..a grocery store…where once inside your walking anyway (I do see the benefit if there is a small infant that you have to carry until you get inside and can put them in a shopping cart). However there is one huge benefit to those spots. When I was pregnant, on the rare occasion I did use them (so shoot me). However I never understood why the hell they were so big, what can’t pregnant woman drive? Then at around nine months pregnant, it dawned on me. Regular parking spots don’t really leave a big tummied soon to be mamma with a lot of room to get out of the dam car…..so in that sense…those spots are great, but fuck who cares if there closer to the entrance.
I’m still waiting for the new ‘Reserved for Existentialists’ spaces the city promised.
I think we all forgot that pregnancy is a condition not a disability. I can understand the wider spots for big bellies and strollers that is a good idea. I think our weather being what it is could be why they are closer. I wouldn’t care if elderly used it but young healthy people use some common curtesy please. Remember you will be old or have a prego with you one day and not be able to get the spot because some snot (like you were) will be in it.
i’m 7 months pregnant and I never get the pregnant parking spots. However, I can walk my ass to the door just the same. You should expect a little walking if you’re going to the mall or the grocery store. As for pregnancy not being a disease, no it isn’t. Sometimes it does lead to medical conditions all of which should make you think twice about going to the mall.
What really bugs me is the strangers who think they have a rght to rub my stomach…..ewwwwwww. ..but that’s a whole ‘nother bitch
Word….
and the thing is…if they label them ‘courtesy spots’ then everyone will treat them as if they weren’t anything special.
Since pregnant women need to be so close to the door so they dont have to walk far, I would like to know what happens inside the store or mall. Do they need a wheelchair to pushed in so they can do their shopping. Pregnant women should be getting regular exercise everyday. I dont think parking spots for pregnant should exist.
thats what im saying Bon…minus, i do like the wide factor, but that problem has the potential of being solved just by people parking their cars right…other times, the space in the spaces just suck
Why should breeders get all the breaks?
perhaps when you are done doing survelliance on the maternity parking spaces, youd like to take some names down of jaywalkers in the morning and kick some ass in the evening?
We may not be the fattest…but we sure as heck are the most cancer riddled. Whoo hoo what a great #1 spot to hold! We are the best, we are the best…at getting cancer.
Yes…it is off topic and extremely…un-PC…but I had cancer and I don’t seem offended…yet 🙂
Just as sort of a side note… I have nothing against the stork parking. It’s douchy to use if you’re not preggo, but everyone knows it’s going to happen once in awhile.
What I do have an issue with is this: I went to a grocery store in N.B. last weekend when I was home for easter weekend. It was of course crazy, and there weren’t a lot of parking spots. We finally spotted one… but… it was a veteran’s parking spot! Now I think veterans are great people and deserve a lot of respect and thanks for what they did for our country, but honestly, the first third of parking spots are taken up by the handicapped parking, stork parking, and veteran parking – most of which were empty. Then the rest of the parking lot was packed. It makes no sense!
Exercise is actually encouraged in most pregnancies…and for the ones it isn’t, whomever said they probably shouldn’t be out in the first place is right.
I think the issue here is the fact that no one minds their own fucking business in this city/region. People are too busy trying to police others and wagging their fingers at them than to take care of their own shit. Worry about yourself and leave the rest of us the fuck alone. I mean anyone remember that bitch about the woman who saw someone eating on the bus and wrote a whole bitch about how you’re not supposed to eat on the bus…mind your own fucking business. If the driver says nothing and she’s not globbing her half chewed food all over you wtf is it to you?
OP’s obviously not preggo so wtf business is it of yours?
Pregnancy isn’t a disability. There is no reason for those choice spaces close to the entrance of the store to be reserved for pregnant women and parents with young children when seniors, may of whom have health issues/mobility problems, have to take whichever space they can get.
Those preggo spaces should not exist any more than “hybrid vehicle only” spots… both should disappear. There are also far too many handicap spots but that is determined by a typically inane law and cannot be changed.
Keith I agree, why should pregnant women (seems nowadays most aren’t even 18 or 19) get special spaces when my mother in her 80s in relative good health (replaced hips) doesn’t.
Sorry preggos…..it is only a courtesy to let you part in those special spots up close to the door. More of a marketing ploy by the store, really. Guess what? Too bad. If it’s piss pouring rain or stormy, I will use that spot if it is open. Why should I get soaking wet to let a perfectly healthy other person park there. Pregnancy isn’t an illness. If you are in that bad of a state that you can barely walk from the car to the store….you shouldn’t be there anyway. If you can make it into the store, you have to walk around in it, so a few more steps from the car obviously won’t kill you either. Those parking spots are total bullshit marketing ploys!
Those spots aren’t just for “preggos” they are for woman with small children, so yea it’s pretty inconsiderate of you to purposely take the spot so that you don’t get wet, and allow a little baby get soaked instead. Im sure your not carrying a little baby when you go into those stores either, or how bout having 4 kids and being 9 months pregnant, I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot easier for that woman to get from the back of the parking lot into the store than it is for you.. I may have used the spot a handful of times when I was pregnant, and honestly, I don’t even really see the point of them, but I would never consider using them if I wasn’t in need of it, that would just be the A-hole thing to do.