Shades of Mediocrity

Meta-Shades and Return of the Question

I've been neglecting the Shades a bit lately, due to a combination of factors: the usual laziness, an especially mentally draining period at work, and an unhealthy obsession with Hordes of the Underdark. I've saved up plenty of things to blog about, though, so all of my loyal readers can rest assured that sooner or later, Shades will return to its normal level of activity.

Until then, I have another question. I dropped the daily questions thing without any fanfare, because for a while, I ran out of questions. Also, in light of the whole election thing, my questions started to seem intolerably trivial rather than just quirky and silly.

I'm over that now (though my media blackout continues, more or less), and ready to go back to my usual navel-gazing. (See? All it took was a little Valium spritzer! Thanks, Kristi!) And what do you know, I still have the occasional question. So from now on, these will be occasional questions rather than daily questions. They will appear approximately weekly, but it could be more or less often depending on when they occur to me.

Like you care. Anyway, for the three of you who've managed to overcome your skull-crushing boredom with this entry to get this far, here's the question:

Why do so many people find it necessary to back into parking spaces?

Last Friday night, John and I went to Orchestra Hall to hear the Minnesota Orchestra play Mahler's 7th Symphony (nicely done, by the way). We sat for nearly five minutes in a parking ramp traffic jam, because the four, yes, four cars directly in front of us all had to back into their parking spaces. What is the advantage to this practice? If you understand it, please enlighten me.