By Patty Kreiser
Dear Fellow Commuters,
We’re screwed. Not only did the University take away parking spots in order to build a new dormitory, but now our coveted parking spots will be taken over by the government! Well, maybe not the government per se, but think about it: with all the “Educate ’08” stuff going on, where are news teams and Secret Service and the FBI and everyone else going to park? That’s right; they’re going to take our territory!
Now I know it seems strange to call a parking spot “territory,” but as commuters, our cars become our second home. Just as University residents retreat to their dorm rooms between classes, commuters retreat back to their beat-up, second-hand, chipped paint tin pot of a car… Or, if Mommy and Daddy love you, you go back to your 2008 Mercedes Benz with built-in GPS and Dolby Digital sound speaker system.
Being a commuter is like living in a trailer park; you can take your home wherever you go. We love our second homes (unless they’re gross, in which case I say get a job and buy a new car) and we cannot stand to be evicted.
So when did I realize that our trailer park lots would be lost? I’d have to say around the time of the Jets training camp. When that circus came to town, a whole parking lot was set aside for moon bounces and parents taking their Jet-uniform-wearing kids to watch the team prepare for their last training season at the University. Then there were the freshmen orientation sessions in which Momma and Poppa Smith from Kentucky parked their oversize 4-by-4’s in two spaces and took precious little Freshman Frankie over to the dorm for his first night away from home. Another half of a parking lot gone. So we’ve lost one-and-a-half parking lots. I know this doesn’t seem like a huge loss since it’s over the summertime, but if we use some simple substitutions…news outlets taking the place of Momma and Poppa’s huge vehicles and the FBI, Secret Service, and McCain and Obama people taking place of the Jets’ camp, we are still down a lot and a half. Add on to this the rising number of resident students with cars (because the University is one of the few that allow freshmen residents to have vehicles on campus), and we poor commuters must park further and further away from our beloved land.
And it will only get worse. Security will probably increase ten-fold, meaning that we’ll have to show eight forms of identification, proof of citizenship and give a blood sample (FYI: My blood runs blue and gold…not) just to enter University property.
So I am an internally displaced human. Doesn’t the United Nations have a name for internally displaced people? Maybe I’m taking this term differently than it was intended, but if the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is to be upheld, I cannot be torn away from my homeland. Maybe I should contact the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Maybe I’m over-exaggerating, but I’m trying to make a point: with all the hoopla surrounding upcoming events, how is the University going to take care of its commuting students? How will we park our cars and still be on time to hear our professors drone on and on about how important the debates are to the country and, “more importantly,” to the future of the University?
Patty Kreiser is a junior broadcast journalism student. You may e-mail her at [email protected].