The Hunt is On: The Never Ending Quest for the Best Parking Spot

Okay. Someone tell me if I'm just being an anal moron here but I saw something today that really bugged me. In fact, it's something that I see just about every day at work or out on the town. All of us have witnessed or possibly at one time or another been a parking lot hawk. Hawking the lot for that prestigous holy grail of parking spots that will get us so close to our destination that we will barely need to utilize that age old skill of walking to get us to our Desk, Fast Food, or Movie Seat. So, today I pulled into the lot of my office complex directly behind a well-known hawk and I decided to find out exactly how much longer his search for the ever elusive golden spot would take him.

Now, I generally go to the exact same spot or section every day and walk about 100 yards to the building. The Pole Position Spot in our lot would still require about a 20 yard walk to the front door. That being said, it is very rare that a hawk will find a spot and actually beat me to the door. I'm not racing or doing anything out of the ordinary to speed my journey since this is a pseudo-scientific experiment that I often conduct.

Enough about the theory. We all know where I'm going. I parked, walked my 100 meters, and went up my three flights of stairs. I went to the window to check the hawk's progress. This usually takes about 3-4 minutes. Still sitting in the parking lot (at least he was not buzzing around the lot driving), he was apparently only focused on getting a Prime spot as he was eyeing the spots within the 20-30 yard radius of the door. As I mentioned before, this Hawk in particular is one of the most ridiculous I have ever seen but the phenomenon begs several questions. 1. How much gas is wasted every day/week/month/year by drivers idly driving around parking lots in search of a better space? 2. What is the aggregate quantity of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere in the search for a better Spot? 3. Wouldn't Hawks be better off by walking a little further and spending less time sitting in their cars? 4. How much time is wasted out of a person's life searching for a space? 5. Do they really care? 6. Should I really care?