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School Sucks
Freshman year at Akron U (1995), talking mostly about how much I owed the university in tickets and a futile attempt to escape their ‘boot’: School is horrible. I can cite nothing of worth in school. In fact, I believe that it might be in my best interest to skip next semester so that I can stay at home and, hopefully, learn how to not be a wise-ass. Currently, I feud with all teachers, students or any one else who spends time at Akron University. When at school, I loudly dominate each discussion as I sardonically question the views of my teachers, I criticize students for being complacent, and argue that the whole, or near to it, of Akron U academic policies are useless and misguided. I am like a modern Socrates- that is, if Socrates is understood as a loud jack-ass who argued with people while having no personal platform, focus or sense of tact… which, I suppose, makes me nothing like Socrates, unless you combined his love of rhetoric with the mind of combative fourth grader. Actually, I may not be welcomed back to Akron U next semester if the campus police department has any say in it. Yesterday I was virtually arrested by the campus police department because of a misunderstanding about certain outstanding tickets- I failed to understand that the police department expected payment for my tickets. Apparently I am at, or close to, the top of a very short list of post $100 violators (I prefer to identify us as “THE CENTURY CLUB”, but the witty name is useless until I can find other members… while being processed, I did run into a man whose fines totaled over $80, but “THE OCTET CLUB” or “FOUR SCORES CLUB” sounds less impressive). Perhaps I should embrace the fines and hassles which are consequent to entering THE CENTURY CLUB- after all, this is the most selective club which I have qualified for. In fact, if I increase my parking deviancy by 25%, it is quite likely that I could summit the Mt. Everest of parking violations: THE MILLIENIUM CLUB. At a certain level, time is on my side- under a five year plan, I only need to generate $200 per year. However, my poor work ethic and childish intelligence might tie me to college for well over five years- given my failings, a conservative $150 per year might be sufficient for entering THE MILLIENIUM CLUB. I should explain how my fines rose to such a high point: although my classes begin at a time when spots are very available, I rarely attend classes in a timely fashion. So, by the time I arrive at school, nearly all parking spots are occupied. Moreover, I am typically running late for some test, quiz or other important obligation, so I do not usually have time to park at a remote lot and then run to class. Usually, I answer this dilemma by parking in a faculty lot and, on nearly all occasions, I am then issued a parking violation which I reverently throw on to the floor of my car. I am issued a ticket on an almost daily basis, or, more accurately, I am issued a ticket on virtually all days in which I attend classes (unfortunately, I am still well short of reaching my goal of a strict, two day attendance minimum per week). I have probably been issued over fifty tickets. My car is littered with violations- after spending any time in my car, passengers exit with a dozen, yellow tickets stuck to their boots. In fact, Akron U parking tickets were becoming my single biggest, material resource: I have unfolded some of the tickets, so that the unprinted side is visible, and use them to take notes while in class, the weather-resistant envelopes make excellent coasters, and I have even been balancing my checking account on one of the tickets- native Americans used the carcass of a Buffalo with less inventiveness. So, in short, I do not consider these tickets to be binding: the Akron U police department is the Coast Guard of law making, hence I feel comfortable in ignoring their every request or mandate. However, the Akron U police department does, apparently, have some latitude in enforcing parking violations- a lesson which cost me several hundred dollars in fines, a rather intense fall in pride, and my car’s alignment. Essentially, my car was detained and that detainment, combined with my rather stupid grasp of cars, almost ruined the Caviler. The incident occurred as such: Last Thursday I attended classes for the second time that week, and –sensing the grind of a two day week– I made an early departure so that I could go home and relax. Because I parked my car at the closet point to the library, a spot normally reserved for commercial vehicles that are making deliveries at the library, it was visible from across the campus. The car had an incongruous or suspicious look to it. As I approached, I saw the cause of my suspicions: an enormous poster stretched over the front windshield, stating, “DO NOT MOVE THIS VEHICLE” with, at the poster’s lowest corner, a freshly issued ticket. I smiled, even laughed out-loud: my car is a great, mobile bulk of yellow parking tickets, yet these people feel that a large poster will finally engage my sense of propriety?. As if no one –even a person who ignores some fifty, conventionally sized, tickets– could neglect a large poster which demands that he not move his vehicle and report to the campus police station. Obviously, they were in error- the poster was a genuine blessing for me since I now had a ticket large enough to function as a window blind or welcome mat. The poster, designed only to guilt or shame me into paying the tickets, would have no success- I tossed the large warning into my back seat and prepared to depart, still laughing at their misguided efforts. Some one must have felt that *I* would be guilted by a sign which conspicuously announces my lack of tact and propriety. Me?! I can not be shamed- when eating, I regularly ask to be seated with “which ever waitress is most accustomed to an 8% tip”, and I have never paused for reflection when discarding the previous tickets, even after the number of tickets reached towering heights that could not even be calculated with out the assistance of cardinal numbers. My biggest concern was the challenging project of turning that poster into a functional Venetian Blind. I ignited the car, calmly retreated the stick into ‘reverse’, applied gas, and, BAM. I was jolted forward as the car suddenly, and violently, stopped its motion- as if I collided with another vehicle. I scanned the immediate area and, after seeing nothing that should obstruct my progress, I made a second attempt. Again, the car made a very slight effort to progress, but then stopped abruptly. I exited the car to discover the problem- I suspected that I was stuck on some curb or that, maybe, a liberian was pinned against the tire. The truth, however was quite different: Akron University had ‘booted’ my car. There was an enormous, steel obstruction attached to the front wheel. The Navy anchors their battle ships with objects that are probably smaller. Moreover, the boot was located on the driver’s side, so I have no idea how it escaped my field of vision when I entered the car. The boot looked like some steel monster which was devouring the front of my car, yet I entered the car without noticing any thing. How did that object elude me? My car could have the entire left side ripped off by a meteorite and I would still enter it without pause or notice- even if a rapist was sitting on the hood with a loaded gun and the rear bumper was being raised by a giant crane. I am, with out question, an idiot. I approached the boot, hoping to find some release button or improperly sealed screw which I could use to remove it. Unfortunately, this boot was a very secure snare- but there were several, over-sized screws which, I reasoned, might release the boot if I loosened or removed them. The screws were tautly fastened so I was unable to rotate them with my fingers. I realized that the boot would probably be removed once I resolved my debt, but I wanted to avoid payment at all costs. I concentrated on other alternatives: I tried to displace the screws or damage the metal joints by slamming a BP travel mug against the boot, I jumped on any part of the boot which was exposed, I wrapped a large bank deposit bag –taken from Battery One stop– around some of the joints and then tried to pull them off, and began entertaining some wild plans- I thought about puncturing the tire to see if the boot could then be slipped off once the air escaped and I even bent my mouth towards the boot in an effort to see if my teeth could reach the over-sized screws. Luckily, my head could not fit into the space where the screws were located, otherwise, massive dental surgery may have been added to the already high costs of this incident. I must be watching too many secret agent movies- I felt that I could escape from this trap with nothing more then the common articles found in my car along with my teeth. I will be a legend with Akron University security guards if their cameras taped the incident: “Joe, look at this kid. He parks the worst looking car on campus illegally, and is trying to remove the boot by jumping up and down on it- wait, now he has a cup…oh, god, is he trying to bite it?! Maybe we should send some one over there before he starts using his eye socket to remove it.” I almost expected to see myself in the Akron U student paper: “Student loses seven teeth and fractures wrist when trying to free his car….. … …Study shows that Akron U commuters are the nation’s dumbest students”. My grade point average over the last two semesters is over 3.8, and yet here I am –one of Akron U’s better students– attempting to bite through a metal boot. I can not even bite through non-kosher pickles, and yet I thought about chewing a metal anchor away from my car. Amazingly, I was still short of the incident’s lowest point. Since I was not clever enough to remove the boot, and because I do not have bionic jaws, I decided that I should try breaking the boot by applying the highest possible amount of force to my car when exiting. I re-entered my car, started it, revved the engine to its highest level and exploded the car into gear. This time, the car seemed as though it was jumping to a stop. Despite making no progress, I tried breaking the boot from my car several more times. My car can probably not even break through a wall of pudding, so –as you probably expected– I achieved no success, unless you can qualify the butchering of my car’s underbelly, the destruction of a tire, and a total loss of functional alignment as a success. I suppose, failing to break the boot was a blessing since I would have been liable for the cost of the boot, a cost which probably exceeds the value of my car (I doubt that a ‘blue book value’ even exists for a ten year old Chevy Caviler with seven different colors, no functioning doors, and limited steering). I accepted defeat, walked across campus to the police station and, after paying the cost of my tickets plus a $35 charge to remove the boot, arranged for some police officer to free my car. I tried to argue that my costs should be reduced since I did not understand the bindingness of past tickets (I believe that I compared my parking habits to one who removes many of those federally-protected tags off mattresses- I ignored the warnings because they seemed like some ridiculous joke), but such efforts were unsuccessful, unless you feel that my ability to remain a consistent jack ass, from the incident’s beginning to end, was a success: “Thirty Five dollars?! Just to remove that boot?! Hell, if I can just find a person with a jaw slightly narrower then mine, I could remove it for free.” I suppose that my open complaint on school has traveled far enough. I’ll save further complaints for later writings. Take care. RSS feed for comments on this post. | TrackBack URI Leave a Comment |
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