Dear Campus Po, please let us park illegally.
It is well understood that owning a car on campus is a privilege. My 32 trips to Trader Joe’s per week are a deeply sacred ritual that I hold close to my heart. The freedom to scream my favorite songs without knocks from my neighbors is a beautiful thing. When things get hard, I go look at the $3 million mansions to remind myself why I am getting this degree.
Having a car is incredible, yet there is a downside that has been ignored for far too long: parking. I can handle near collisions with the Loco that aspires to be a Mini Cooper. I can handle students walking in front of my car at night with no warning. I can handle the mountain of snow on the corner of Lulu that makes it impossible to see oncoming traffic.
What I can’t handle, however, is a $75 ticket for parking in a fire lane and a phone call that my car is being towed. My aforementioned trips to Trader Joe’s make it nearly impossible for me to trek all the way from the DC lot to my dorm. Do you not care about my ready-made kimbap? Not even my Scandinavian Swimmers? I truly believe that the fee is overkill, but the towing? That is just cruel. It’s not my fault that people have to go places, and I don’t want to walk!
The worst part, though, is that signs are blocking every open spot. These are reserved for completely imaginary people. What even is a “Service Vehicle” or a “Resident Director”? Clearly, these are positions made up by Big Parking to make our lives more difficult.
To the officer who issued the tickets: I saw Zootopia. I know that issuing parking tickets is not an exciting task. I feel for you, truly. But I must ask: Where does this money even go? The dust-covered Ford Explorer that sits in the Davis garage? Why does my $75 (that could be used for things like… books… or whatever) have to be forcefully taken from me due to a signage issue?
I hope you understand where I’m coming from, and I would like to present a compromise that we can both agree on. I propose a high-tech underground tunnel parking garage modeled after LA celebrity streets. Let the asbestos-filled caverns rise again, this time in the name of automotive freedom. And if that is not feasible, simply redirect all ticket revenue into teleportation technology. It is efficient. It is innovative. It is tow proof.
(Please don’t tow my car.)
