How to play cat-and-mouse game of UCLA parking
Finding, keeping a decent space requires great ingenuity,
guile
Last quarter, two days before I wrote an article about bathroom
graffiti, I opened the newspaper, and much to my dismay, someone
had beat me to it. This quarter, 13 days before my second column, I
opened The Bruin and again was horrified. Kristen Morefield wrote a
Jan. 12 viewpoint entitled "Campus parking: the incredible
shrinking act." I felt as if someone was in my head, wading
knee-deep in dead brain cells.
Fortunately for me, neither of these articles had my twisted
slant on them, so I was able to proceed as planned, full speed
ahead. Although, I still couldn’t help but feel like Columbus
"discovering" America as I set out to write.
This article comes at a time when I finally have a place to park
my car again. It’s been since last June that I had a regular spot.
Summer in the dorms and fall in the co-ops left me vulnerable to
the daily search that thousands of Bruins are not only familiar
with, but have repeated nightmares about. It is so nice to be out
of the co-ops this quarter. However, it’s not because of the
roaches or the gruel or the grime, it’s because I now have a place
to park.
I can now look back at my six-month predicament and laugh.
Actually, to make the last sentence a little more accurate, replace
laugh with shudder, and the word predicament with the phrase period
of frickin’ hell. Parking here in Westwood is nothing short of
bubonic plague-ish.
We all know how silly the restrictions placed on us in Westwood
are. The only place the parking is worse is the Autopia at
Disneyland, and that’s because those cars aren’t allowed to stop
long. Allegedly, these restrictions are put into place to keep the
streets clean and give everyone equal access to the limited number
of parking spaces. The only thing we have equal access to is
getting royally screwed over by the city at the hands of sinister
parking attendants — who, I might add, by far outweigh the number
of people wishing to park here.
The parking restriction signs include:
* No parking 1-3 Thursday
* No parking 1-3 Friday
* 2 hour parking 8-6 Monday through Friday
* No stopping 4-6 Monday through Friday
* No parking unless you have a nifty 76 ball on your antenna
* Stay off the grass
* Honk if you’re horny
I need a Captain Crunch decoder ring to figure out where to put
my car. Parking in Westwood reminds me a lot of playing chess. It’s
like moving my king (which is a very liberal name for my
six-year-old Honda Civic) around the chessboard (Westwood) to keep
from being captured. No matter how toned I think my chess skills
are (which developed as a kid while playing Stratego, Battleship
and Candyland), I always get checkmated by the meter maid.
Thirty-dollar ticket, check and mate.
There really is no public official who, historically, is less on
our side than the meter maid. Even a medieval executioner was able
to offer a kind word before he lopped off your head. Many people
hate the police, but at least in theory they are here to "protect
and serve" despite all their shortcomings (like breaking up my
parties). Meter maids are only here to "screw over and harass." I
can’t get too upset at them because they are only doing their job,
which must be as successful as cleaning up after an unsuccessful
rodeo clown.
Students have developed certain strategies to cope with the
problem. These strategies are comparable to man’s conquest of fire,
the invention of the wheel, and the discovery of Silly Putty. There
is, of course, the two-hour trek to the car to erase the chalk from
the tires. Also, there is the mad dash on Thursday and Friday to
save the car from the street sweeping beast. My personal favorite
involves never moving your car except for the few times a week
needed to avoid a ticket. Of course, this defeats the whole purpose
of having a car, but don’t tell my brain that or I may become
discouraged about all my effort from last quarter.
The non-movement of the car procedure is an art form. It
involves leaving your car in a Friday street sweeping spot the
whole week until Friday at 12:55 p.m.. Then from 1:00 p.m. to 2:55
p.m. you do everything that requires your car for the week. At 3:00
p.m. you glide into an open space and you’re home free for another
week. I’m talking everything. Shopping, picking up dry cleaning,
drag racing, dropping your friend off at rodeo-clown school and
yes, even dating.
Of course I’ve run into a few sticky situations this way. I find
myself saying things like "Yes, I understand you don’t normally go
that far on a first date, but we only have fifteen minutes left
until I lose my spot, and I won’t be able to take you out again
until next Friday."
For those who are real bargain shoppers, try parking at the
dorms. Those meters are a great deal. Seven-and-a-half minutes for
a quarter; can you say rip-off? I know places where you can get two
hours for the same price, and according to Sally Struthers, you can
feed a child for a month on 22-and-a-half minutes at the meter.
I guess it just goes to show that when considering parking
prices, there are only three important factors: location, location,
location. I suppose if I were looking for a place to park my yak in
Nepal for instance, that quarter could get me a week-long parking
space, and that price would include some fine grub and a sturdy
woman.
Street sweeping is the biggest scam the city has going here. I
can’t even begin to address how ludicrous the whole business is. I
can only liken it to a pop-culture hoax that took me months to
recover from – Milli Vanilli. It is so obvious that they only
undertake this street cleaning activity to make money to fatten the
pensions of the L.A. politicians. I’ll be happy when they just
admit it. The signs should read "Please park your car here, city
revenue collection period."
The parking on campus is run by the same "the citizen is always
wrong" system as Westwood. According to the Magna Carta, all men
are created equal. Well, this may have been true in Mr. Carta’s
time, but it doesn’t apply to parking on campus. Chuck gets to park
wherever he wants, the teachers have a smaller range of choices,
and I can only park in Lot 123.9, located in Downey.
I once got a ticket for parking at Lot 32 in Westwood. Instead
of making a short story long, I’ll just tell you (yeah you) that I
was right, and the parking attendant was wrong. I’ll even bet my
dad could beat up the parking attendant’s dad. This incident taught
me the joys of knowing (not in the biblical sense) the lovely "me
against the world" parking lady; I think her name was Hagatha.
Whew!!! I feel so much better. I’ve gotten out all my
frustrations of the last year in one night. And hey, it’s still
early enough to go out and get smashed. Adios (that means sayonara)
until next time, and remember, be good to each other (a quote from
the great Judge William Keene).
Birkenstein is a 15th year enviornchemopolyhistogramical student
that this week would like to use this space to say goodbye to
someone special, she knows who she is.
Brian Birkenstein
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