Sell your car to a senior

Peter Gillette

Welcome to Lawrence University. Don’t expect to get a parking spot. We, the upperclassmen, will lull you into a false sense of security. We will sit and wait back until Sunday. And then, as a massive automotive army, we will amass at once, springing onto campus and snatching up every space available.

There will be a week during which-if your car is registered-you will be allowed to park in a space. This is another cruel trick.

One week later, you will get a letter in the mail. It will say, “You did not get a parking spot.”

You will tell yourself, “I can work with this. I will park on the street during the day, and at night, I’ll move my car into a faculty lot. And at 6:45 a.m. every morning, I will wake up and move my car out of the faculty lot so I won’t get any tickets.”

You will not wake up at 6:45 every morning. You will amass parking tickets. And after the third parking ticket, you will do what I did last March: you will beg-BEG-one of your more fortunate peers to drive you to the Tow-Star office, conveniently just beyond walking distance, and you will pitifully beg-PITIFULLY-one of your more prosperous friends to come along with you, write you a check that you can cash at a currency exchange, bring to the Tow-Star office, and–$150 later, after extra charges for things like “having no trailer hitch” or “having a yellow car”-exchange for the meek restoration of your dignity, for the time being. Until, of course, you amass parking tickets three through six.

Now, we-the upperclassmen-are in positions of power in student government, and we get very upset when the little ones steal our spots. We get so upset, in fact, that we construct other cruel tricks.

Last year, the Student Welfare Committee announced that at least one freshman, one sophomore, and one junior will receive a parking spot via lottery. The catch? You have to register your car.

Now, school rules state that all cars on campus must be registered. However, there are drawbacks to registering: namely, “they” can track you, ticket you, send you weeping to Tow-Star, and-this is the ultimately diabolical part of the plan-you will then not be eligible for future parking lotteries. That means, of course, that you will be stuck in a hellish Groundhog Day wherein you try to wake up at 6:45 a.m. every day, until you finally get it right for an entire term.

So, as a senior, I’d like to recommend Appleton’s bus service. It is inexpensive, and, on the whole, convenient.

Or, if you need to get somewhere, make friends with an upperclassman who will drive you around. So, come talk to us. We don’t bite…unless, of course, you park in the Hiett lot…