parking bay RAGE

Perhaps it was the fatigue, perhaps it was the heat. But today I was outraged in a way that only a parent would understand.

You never really appreciate the logisitical juggling-act it takes to put kids into and out of new-fangled car seats, until you have kids.
Especially a tantrum-throwing two year old who you didn't buy chocolate for and who doesn't want to into the car. Needless to say, such juggling requires space.

Such space isn't available in normal car-bays. I once put a nice white mark on a nice black Mercedes because I was trying to squeeze my bub into her seat. I was so pleased as was the Merc's owner (what on earth is a Merc doing in East Vic Park anyway?)

This morning it was hot and I didn't really want to go out. My little girl is still feverish and I have had no sleep. But we had run out of baby panadol and it was life and death (well it felt like it anyway).

So I headed down to my local haunt, the Park Centre in EVP which, by the way, has the best ever parking with prams bays.

But this morning the bays were full as they sometimes are. Just as I was passing them on my third go around the carpark (by now I had one crying baby and one whining toddler), two thin little tweenies came flouncing out of the shops, all boob-tubes, fake tans and oversized sunnies.

They proceeded to preen and pose as they put their shopping into the back of a shiny red Mitsubishi Lancer which was parked in a PARENTS BAY!!! To add insult to injury, their bags were from JeansWest and the surf shop. So not only were they parked in MY bay, they were doing it to buy CLOTHES! I was hot, I was frustrated and I needed to share this with them.

So I wound down my window "Excuse me but I think you've left something in the shops" Okay, that had their attention.
"Your baby - you have left it in the shops"

By now they were looking at me like I was a nutter - which is partly true but I wasn't finished.

"Well you see you are parking in a parents bay so you must have a child with you but I cant see it!"

The taller, skinner of the two, with her little boobies all pert and pushed up gave me a look as to say "like whatever" (as teenagers have a very good habit of doing) and then continued to go about her business.

This got me quite mad but really, there wasn't a lot I could do. So I sat in my car and seethed but they couldnt reverse....because I was behind them. So I sat there for five minutes with my screaming kids in a hot car JUST TO MAKE A POINT. Hahaha!

After a while, I felt like a complete idiot (yes - because I really was being one) and I moved on to recieve a fair bit of abuse from the tweenies. But at least I had shared some of my grief with them.

But I think they got the last laugh. As they moved out of the bay I noticed the sign on the side of their nice little car

"BABE ON BOARD" - not baby, not kids, but babe. Meaning a hot, young chick without kids, with flat tummies and boobs that do not leak. Yes that sign said it all - "you may have won the battle but we are still young and pretty".

Yes so they are.