`Parking Rage`

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'Parking rage' dark side of Black Friday


Patience and luck pay off for one shopper, who jockeys for position to fill the parking space of another shopper at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis on Friday.
Cape Cod Times/Merrily CassidyBy Doug Fraser
dfraser@capecodonline.com

November 27, 2010HYANNIS — Finding that prime parking spot, or sometimes any parking spot, is the first of many hurdles on the way to a bargain on Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Depending on your personality type or mood, you may choose to stalk your prey, following shoppers with packages, waiting for the flash of keys. Or decide to hunker down, idling at the end of a row of parked cars, hoping to outlast the drivers who believe that by circling endlessly, they'll be in the right place at the right time.

Maybe those like Phil Dinan, 20, of Marstons Mills are the smartest of all. Dinan heads straight for the outermost reaches of the Cape Cod Mall parking lot. It's less stressful.

"It's not a big deal. I don't want to be driving around and around," he said.

"After all I ate, the turkey, the stuffing, I kind of need the exercise," said a woman who preferred to remain anonymous, walking the distance to Kmart from the sparsely populated outer parking lot at the Capetown Plaza on Route 132. Her husband is one of those who creates his own parking space, driving his truck up onto a traffic island, but Charlene Grant of South Yarmouth can't do that. She's more like that patient croc at the watering hole. She lingers in the fire lane near the mall entrance, camouflaged by the illusion she may be picking someone up.

But, let an unsuspecting shopper loaded down with packages step onto black pavement, with a swish from the sliding glass doors and Grant switches to mall stalker. She shadows the unsuspecting victim as he, or she, checks innocently in pockets for keys, and scans the rows ahead for their vehicle. The trick is to be far enough away to not annoy or startle the prey, but close enough to warn everybody else off.

"It's awful. You have to be a mall stalker," said one woman, adding that mall parking woes persist through January. "I have literally seen people get in fistfights. They should have a valet."

It's called "parking rage," said Leon James, professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii. He co-wrote the book "Road Rage and Aggressive Driving" with Diane Nahl in 2000.

"When we get challenged in parking lots by someone else's actions, we feel enraged," James wrote to the Times in an e-mail. "Many people lack the skills to cope with this rage and so they express it through aggressive or violent behavior."

James advised people decide ahead of time that they will park wherever there are free spaces, even if it means a walk. "It is more risky (to drive around) because the more you circulate in parking lanes the higher the probability that you are going to hit something or get hit by another car," he wrote.

Grant abjures the confrontations that ensue when territorial instincts clash. "I've seen people get really mad, and get into altercations," she said. "This time of year, it shouldn't be about that."

It's a little too early in the season for people to get really angry, said Donna Miskiv of Centerville. "Wait a week," she said with a laugh.


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Seems the fact I didn`t participate in this `rage` made for no extra parking spaces.
Those who get pissed off are going to be so anyway....some are simply looking for an excuse to be angry... Ooooh lets go to the `maul !`
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Cape Cod Mall welcomes back the jolly old elf, Santa! He will meet, greet and pose for photos with children in his Winter Garden near Sears throughout the holiday season. For a full list of Santa’s hours, visit www.simon.com and search for Cape Cod Mall, or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/capecodmall. Santa will be on site at through December 24, 2010.

Um, Nope...