The morning of March 8, I was late getting to school. After searching fruitlessly for parking, at about 9 a.m., I waited in line in my car in Lot B at the top of the staircase near the bus stop at the student unloading area.

I waited at the top of the stairs for the next student leaving the campus so that I could follow them or give them a ride to their parking spot, like everyone else does.

I was third in line waiting, with about 4 or 5 cars behind me. Suddenly, I saw two passengers from several cars behind me get out, walk down the stairs and contact students on their way up to secure their parking spots for their accomplices (meaning a friend, or other, waiting in the car for them) waiting in the cars near the end of the line. What’s up with that?

How would they feel if someone did that to them? Pissed off and frustrated is how all those in front of you felt when you did that. It’s bad Karma. Don’t do it!

Another student didn’t even bother to park in the line. She didn’t have an accomplice, so she parked illegally by a median strip near the bus stop, left her car unattended and walked down the stairs and did the same the others had done.

Do we need campus police to be “line monitors” assigning departing students to the next waiting car? Come on! We are not in grade school, we are adults. Wait your turn just like at the bank, or at the movies or at a club.

Or, does campus police have to be up there dispersing the waiting students in their cars so that no one, not even the cheaters, can wait there? I hope not, because the waiting thing usually works fine except for when the cheaters mess things up.

As those two women and one guy came up the stairs with their ill-gotten parking spot person, I secretly hoped they’d be stricken with indigestion for the rest of the day, and their accomplices waiting in the cars too. But, I had to settle for seeing those gloating students walk in front of my car on their way down the stairs, in way-too-tight jeans and slacks that made their backsides look really really HUGE! Yes, even the guy’s backside. I guess their is a god after all.

I wouldn’t have written about this situation at all but it was very upsetting to all those who waited. I hope this is not a trend.

P.S. If I’m coming up the stairs and you approach me for my parking spot, I know how the people at the front of the line are going to feel. I don’t have to say yes. I won’t be your accomplice. I’ll say no to you and let the next person waiting in line have my space. They’re playing fair, unlike you.

— John Villarreal
GCC student