I am so angry that I’m shaking right now. I got up early this morning so that I could get a good parking spot because it snowed again and I didn’t feel like walking very far in the cold. I got to the parking lot at 10:30 and I had my class at 11:00, so that gave me half an hour to wait for someone to leave their spot in the lot.

Now, here’s what you should know. There is only one parking lot for graduate assistants that is close to my building. It is always filled, but you generally have a couple of people leave every half hour. If I don’t get a spot in this lot, I have a twenty minute hike to my building, which I generally don’t mind, but not when the temperature is in the single digits or below.

So I was waiting for about twenty five minutes, my class was starting in five minutes, and finally someone was going to leave. I pulled behind their car and waited for them to back out so that I could pull in. Then a silver SUV pulls up. As the car left, I pulled into the spot, and the silver SUV beeped at me. I’m thinking “Okay, I waited 25 minutes for this spot, and now you’re upset because you just pulled up and think you deserve it. Whatever.” That isn’t what I am upset about.

The woman rolled down her window and waited for me to get out of my car and then yelled at me for not being a gentleman. She is a woman, so I should give her the parking spot.

I definitely have my shortcomings, but you can not say that I’m not a gentleman. That is one of the characteristics that I am always consciously making sure I embody. I always hold doors open, am honest and caring, and I live by my word. However, there is a big difference between being a gentleman and being a pushover.

I could have snapped back at her, and I could have said what I really thought of her, but I didn’t. In the words of former First Lady Barbara Bush, she is something that “rhymes with rich.” She said I wasn’t a gentleman, I said “whatever” and I just kept walking to my building. We’ll see what my car looks like when I go back out around 3:00.

I almost got in a car accident today, but luckily I was paying attention. I’m noticing that people in Oxford don’t understand the concept of stopping. For example, at a four-way stop, when cars are traveling north and south, they should go at the same time, then the people going east and west can go at the same time, then north and south again and so on and so forth. Here in Oxford, that’s not what people do. Here, they all go one at a time. I was traveling north. The car to my left was going east, and they went. The car traveling west (the car on my left) did not go. There was no car in front of me (traveling south), so I decided that if the west-bound car wasn’t going to go, I would. When I was almost halfway through the intersection, the other car decided she should finally go. She proceeded to beep their horn at me and wave their hands like I did something wrong. I’m sorry, but if you’re not going to go when it’s your turn, you lose your turn.

Also, when you’re turning left at a light and there’s no turn arrow, you are supposed to go out a bit into the intersection so that you are past the point of no return so that you can legally turn once the light begins to change. I was behind a girl today that sat through two green lights before she finally turned because she didn’t have a chance to turn while the light was green during the first two lights. What a waste of my time!

I got a little bit of parking revenge today. I was pulling into the parking lot and there weren’t any spaces left. As I was pulling in, there was a car pulling out of the lot, clearly upset that they didn’t get a spot. I was disappointed, but figured I should go around the loop anyway, just in case. As I did, a professor pulled up behind me. I was thinking to myself, “why are you going around here with me? There are no spots for me, but there are several red spots for faculty.” So I was driving through and I saw a car about to leave their spot, so I took it! Through my rearview mirror, I saw the professor behind me say something that I think was probably not very nice. I wish I knew why the professor felt like they had to park in a Graduate Assistant spot (the very last one left) when there were plenty of faculty spots open in the same lot! Oh well. I got it and they didn’t!!! Take that, you selfish pig!

I got a parking ticket at school today. I am very annoyed. I was parked in the very last graduate assistant spot, right next to a faculty spot, and when I went back to my car after a long day of classes, I had a parking ticket for parking in a faculty spot, which I didn’t! I got to school early today so that I could find a parking spot. Almost all of the GA spots were taken by faculty members who can park anywhere but choose to park in the GA spots because they’re closer to some of the buildings. There were all sorts of faculty spots open that were twenty feet further from the buildings, but of course the faculty just had to park in the GA spots. I was glad I got to park in a GA spot because they’re hard to find thanks to the faculty members who don’t park where they should.