I'm not really criticizing Coco, per se. I'm just saying I don't get it. I don't understand.
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IMHO she did the right thing,hell if the mall won't let you park why should you shop and subsidize the malls rental revenues."
If they won't let me park at a shopping mall, I'm not going to do any shopping there, either. That's perfectly logical and understandable.
By the same token, I'm not going to get kicked off the lot, and then go into one of the stores, gather up an armload of products, take them to the counter, and they say, "I
would have bought these if security hadn't told me I can't park on the lot. Now, here, go put all these back on the shelves."
To me, and I'm obviously missing something huge here, that makes no sense.
And as little sense as that makes to me, what makes even less sense is to have already bought a bunch of stuff, then security tells you that you have to move, and then you take all the stuff back to return it (which does, actually, makes sense), but then the manager says, "Let me make a phone call," and comes back and says, "OK, everything is fine. You now have permission to park on the lot."
With that phone call, instantly the problem became a non-problem. You
can park there. So why go ahead and return the previously bought items? That makes no sense. What does it accomplish? It doesn't make a statement. Walking back into the store with an armload of goods to return clearly made the statement already. Going ahead and returning the items
after the manager resolved the problem merely tells the manager that going out of his way to resolve a problem to make a customer happy is something that he need not bother with in the future, because it won't work.
So, to my naive little eye, it seems that revenge was extracted from people who had nothing to do with the situation, or from people who actually tried to help rectify the situation, instead of from the people who were the cause of the situation (the security guard, who was just doing what he was told to do, and the landlord, who, after the phone call from the grocery store manager, lifted the parking ban completely). That's not a statement, that's petty vindictiveness.
Being in a van, it's not nearly as much of a PITA when it comes to parking. The only lots I've been kicked out of have been motel parking lots, because I didn't have a room there.
But I've also spent a day or three in a motel parking lot and no one has said a word. There's a Holiday Inn in Bolingbrook (across the Interstate from that ratty old truck stop) that lets me park there when I'm in Chicago. I like it there because it's a good springboard spot for heading in most any direction to a shipper, they have patrolled 24-hour security, and they have killer, 8 Mbit Internet access.
There's a shopping center, of which a Wal Mart is in there, out by the airport in Pittsburgh, where I park in a little nook behind an Italian Restaurant, next to a Panera Bread place (over by the Cracker Barrel) where I've had the police knock on my window, but once I explain what I'm doing, they're fine with me being there. I just lock it up tight, cover the windows, and try not to bother anyone.
I've had the police knock on my window several times, but so far, never been told to leave. Once they see that nothing funny is going on, they're usually pretty kewl with it. Usually, in places where I think there's a chance of that happening, or there's a chance of me getting kicked out, I go find someone and get permission to park there before I park there.
There's a truck stop just south of Minneapolis where I have the police knock on my windows two nights in a row, a Friday night and Saturday night. I guess they don't see many expedite vans in that neck of the woods. Apparently, that place has a history of being robbed. I told one cop that, yeah, this is the perfect low-profile vehicle to use as a stake-out to case the joint. <snicker> She suggested that I park back there with the big trucks. I asked her if she'd ever seen what can happen to a van or an RV that takes up a big truck spot in a truck lot. I have. She hadn't. hehe
In any case, if I'm ever asked to leave a place, I think I'll just keep it simple and, just leave. I can't imagine myself being told to leave, and then on the way out of the lot I go speudo-shopping at the stores in the strip, telling everyone I would have bought this or that if I hadn't been told to leave. No, I'd just leave.
But like I said, I'm not jumping on anybody. I'm just trying to understand it all.
