Lines

This is supposed to be three lanes of traffic

Petco has a nice service for these times. I usually buy my dog food online and then go pick it up at their store. For some reason it is much cheaper to buy it online and pick it up than if you just walked in there and picked it off the shelf yourself. Anyway, now they will actually bring it out to your car. You don't even have to go in there. You pull into the parking lot and call the store, then the person working in the store is supposed to bring you your purchase. So I gave it a try. I arrived at the store, parked across from the front door and called.

"I'll pop the trunk and you can just drop the bag of dog food in there." I instructed the nice young person who answered the phone.

"I'm sorry sir, but I have to physically hand it to you."

"Okay, but doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of me staying in my car. You know, social distancing and all that?"

"Ummm..... "

"Fine, I'm across from your store in the parking lot."

"Oh, I can't bring it across there to you. Could you back right up to the door?"

I looked at the only parking spot in front of the door. It was barely wide enough for my car, much less for me to get out and take the bag of dog food from her. And I can't blame the other drivers who had parked too close. The lines in the parking lot had probably been painted in 1975. You could barely make them out and people were just parking willy nilly. I don't know what it is about the city of Chicago, but nobody paints lines on the pavement. Not in parking lots, not on the actual streets. On more than one occasion I have almost sideswiped a car because we both thought we were in a lane when neither one of us were. Worst is on Clark/Ashland where in some places the only evidence of lanes are the cracks in the pavement. It would be nice that while nobody is using the streets this month, the city maybe paints a few lines out there. So I backed in between the two cars in front of the Petco Store, and tried to squeeze out of my car without banging my door into the car next to me. As I grunted and groaned, sucking my gut in for more ease of egress, the young Petco employee plopped my bag of dog food in the trunk, said thank you and left.

"You're welcome." I called out as I squeezed back into the car.