Sunday Afternoon/Evening RANT!

     A trip to Rite-Aid has usually meant not finding spaces because people going to places other than the area of the lot (an eatery  is really the only other place) park there for hours beyond any normal shopping or dining period. I have always had mixed feelings about the many limitations on parking, but I have never parked in a lot intending solely to go elsewhere shopping.

     A slight disclaimer here. I have gone to the lot's shops as well as nearby areas, and this only on critical occasion (at least to me). I have tried fairly assiduously to follow the rules. Those of us who do so are always punished, it seems, in worldly terms, by consequences which we did not ourselves reap.

     Today, I drove in to find a man,  a booth, and a charge. Although validation was possible, for a half hour's browsing, it was two buck's and up. No longer the free and easy access. I was annoyed. The valet assumed that it was because I was impatient at having to wait for a ticket. Nope, that wasn't it.

     I was annoyed that this inconvenience was caused by those who fail to abide by the standards of civility. After I parked my car, I explained my reasons for being less than charming to him. We were sympatico. My to be validated ticket and I went into the drug store.
   
There were no wagons and the things I was intending to purchase needed more than a basket.  A young man found what appears to have been the only remaining shopping cart in the environs. I was content again.

   I needed a flash drive. Nothing was in the open as there is fear of theft. That's ok. I understand.  All I need to do is to ask and I shall receive one 4 gigabyte flash drive from behind the counter. Another lovely employee retrieved it, but I was not allowed to keep it to continue in my shopping.  Why? Because of that very same danger of theft. I guess those gates at exit doors are no longer enough.

      
      I was annoyed, thrice, or was it for the fourth time!? Not simply because I, who has never stolen anything from a store so it seemed personal, but because the fact that this is necessary is about some person or persons who STEAL thus, once more, punishing the rest of us who do not. Instead of dealing with these folks in any meaningful fashion, society tries to block them by blocking all of us from our simple daily activities. You say, "what's the big deal?"  By itself, maybe nothing, but one after another of these solutions that do not bear upon the moral centers of the people who cause them to be necessary, in fact compound the problem. Rather than deal with the miscreants, we limit our freedoms. Oh, rather, they are limited for us. And the uncivil or the criminal simply seek ways to evade the obstacles. The rest of us are deterred while they mock and destroy the fabric of our country and our very souls. 


On the other hand, maybe it is a good thing for me to shop less. . . .