Parking on campus

First, Winter Hours are in effect, meaning that staff lots now open at 4pm instead of 5pm.  This helps Emily a lot, since she has class at 4pm.

Second, non-permit parking, even at meters, is extremely difficult to find on campus.  On evenings when Emily is running late and asks me to park her car for her it almost always takes me 20+ minutes to find a spot.

Today’s humorous experience happened as I was walking from Espresso Royale in the Krannert Art Museum over to the Education Building.  There is a parking lot that is about 90% metered parking next to K.A.M. and along this route.  I walked into the lot and heard two people talking.  I realized that one person was in the car stopped in the middle of the aisle and the other was standing next to a car.  When I got in range, I heard the lady by her car say “Oh, really?  Where were you?”  The other lady responded “I was waiting over there.”  I thought “okay…why were you two looking for each other in a metered parking lot?”, especially because the tone didn’t sound confrontational.  The next thing I heard was the lady by her car say “Well, I’m not moving my car just because you say you were here first.”  The other lady said something about how she had been waiting for that spot, etc., but I quickly was out of range.

I know what it’s like to be in the wrong aisle in that lot and have someone come in and go straight into a spot, but damn.  You missed the spot.  Parking is not fair…if you miss the spot, you move on and try to find another one.  You don’t try to convince the person who took it to get back in their car and move, not because you’re wrong, but because you’ll never win.  Go park in the staff lot, be happy that you got a free spot while the other person had to pay the meters until 6, and let it go.