# The bay nearest the exit gets taken every time

> An overhead back print of a row of parking bays, one filled with a small yellow car below an EXIT arrow — the spot picked out of habit, long after the reason to hurry stopped applying.

August 22, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-parking-spot-you-always-take-now

A row of parking bays, seen straight from above, painted in white line-work across the full width
of the back. One bay holds a small yellow car; the rest sit empty. Above the row, an arrow and a
stencilled word: EXIT.

Out of an identical row, one bay gets picked every single time — not the nearest to the entrance,
the nearest to that arrow.

## Why does the design only fill in one bay out of the row?

Because the row isn't the subject — the one bay that keeps getting chosen out of it is.

A parking diagram with every bay full would just be a car park. Leaving the rest empty and colouring
in one puts the whole point in a single detail: given a full row of interchangeable options, the
same one wins, over and over, without anybody standing there weighing it against the others.

## What's actually deciding which bay wins?

The shortest carry between the car and the door, counted in steps rather than in minutes.

It isn't the fastest way out of the car park, and it isn't the first available space — it's whichever
bay puts the least distance between the boot and wherever the load is headed, which is [the same
overhead vantage point a floor plan uses to show who goes
where](/stories/who-sits-where-at-the-table) rather than a driving decision made behind the
wheel. Once that route's been walked enough times, the body picks the bay before the decision gets
made consciously.

## What choice does a diagram like this leave the buyer to make?

Which side the exit sits on, and how many bays surround the chosen one — a huddle is enough; the
row doesn't need to run the width of an actual car park to make the point.

The design isn't asking for an accurate floor plan of a specific building. It's asking for the shape
of the habit: one bay marked out from a small cluster of identical ones, with the arrow showing
which direction actually matters.

## Whose car park is this, and does printing it need clearing with anyone?

Nobody's — an invented row of bays with no real building's layout and no signage borrowed from an
actual car park operator.

EXIT is a plain word, not anybody's mark, and the yellow car is a generic silhouette rather than a
specific model. A design that did copy a real multi-storey's actual paint scheme or a branded sign
would be a different question, and a licensable one; an invented layout answers it by never needing
to ask.

## Is this the same idea as a shirt about the exact spot someone's tyres wear into a driveway?

Related, but not the same mechanism — [that one records a physical mark left in the ground by
repetition](/stories/the-way-he-parks); this one records a bay chosen for a reason, with
nothing physically marking it out at all.

A worn tyre arc is evidence after the fact — the ground itself keeping score. A picked bay leaves no
trace anywhere except the habit of picking it, which is why the print has to draw the choice in
rather than the wear.

## Isn't it wasteful to always aim for the same bay when a closer one might be open?

Not really — waste implies weighing options, and this isn't a comparison being made each time.

Circling for the single best available spot is a different behaviour from walking straight to one
specific bay regardless of what else is open. The second one isn't optimising; it's running on a
route that was set once and never re-evaluated, which uses less thought, not more.

## Does it print well?

Yes, provided the palette stays to the two inks the diagram actually needs — white line-work plus
the one yellow car — [rather than adding a third colour that has no job to
do](/stories/limited-palette-prints-better).

At full back width, the lines need to stay bold enough to hold their shape at a glance from across a
room; [the whole print sits close to the width of a sheet of
paper](/stories/print-size-on-the-body) scaled up, and the car silhouette in particular needs
enough size to read as a car rather than a blob of yellow.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the bay at [JustOG](/) — which side the exit's on, and how the row around it should look.
Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to
order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Every other bay in that level is usually open. This one still gets taken.