All My Gettings

The lot I park in almost every day perplexes me. It is a fairly sizeable lot, divided among spots for faculty passes, student passes and economy passes. For the most part, the areas make sense: faculty are closest to the buildings, then the student passes, then the economy passes.* However, at one place, along the sidewalk, there is a row of faculty stalls, then a row of student spots then another row of faculty ones. It's like a sandwich. And for no reason that I can ascertain. Those faculty spots that are farther away from most buildings are not closer to any other buildings. Unless you count the buildings across the nothing-to-sneeze-at-road, which at any rate has a parking lot of its own right next to it. These faculty places are just there, being under-utilized and mocking me whenever I happen to get to campus after 8.30 and discover that I've missed the window of finding a parking place. Show up at 9.00 and you're suddenly debating whether you can, in fact, fit between those two Hummers that only left about three-fifths of an actual space in the one remaining spot.

But, the real issue is this: I am a bit, (ok, ok a lot) flighty sometimes. I make a lot of really simple, truly maddening, and thoroughly avoidable dumb decisions every day. Often without realizing it until much later. So, twice now in the semester, I've been walking towards my car only to see it parked in a faculty spot. Not only parked but there all by himself, standing out like a Hawaiian shirt in sacrament meeting. My heart speeds up. I start cursing myself out. I hope against hope that the lot was not scoured and maybe, just maybe I won't have a ticket.** I keep walking...and realize it's not my car. Well, it's my car (same make, model, and color) but not my actual car, the one I drove to school that day. My car has been both times safely in the student zone.

Now that it's happened twice, I'm hoping I'm savvy to it. But, probably not. Apart from making dumb missteps, I frequently make the same ones time and time again. Because, I mean, really, what's the point of ever learning anything useful, right?

*These economy spots, though, are scant, which surely leads purchasers to wonder about the wisdom of trying to save some money.

**I'm not fully unfounded in my fear of tickets for failure to understand parking regulations. Since coming back to the U last fall, I have gotten one warning and two tickets because I am incapable, apparently, of figuring them out.