I haven’t posted in a while and I know this has probably caused much distress. I’m sorry to have let you all down. Do not fret, I’m still here! (Emily has probably been crying. She does that. Someone hug her, please… No, you do it! I did it last time… Yes, I did. You don’t even remember... Okay, well, that may be true... Yeah, I guess you raise a valid point… Look, I said I get it but you’re not hearing me: I don’t care who does it, it’s just not going to be me... No, YOU take some responsibility… Yeah, well, I guess that's your opinion... Okay, fine! You know what? I’ll do it… Sheesh, I have to do everything around here… Yeah, I said it… Oh yeah, well, same to YOU… Yeah, yeah, see you at Thanksgiving.)

Moving on, I have a little story for you that happened a couple of weeks ago. For those that weren’t aware, I’ve been working for the last year and a half at the Renton Technical College bookstore. Just recently, I was awarded “Employee of the Quarter.” Yay, me! Right? It’s made me a little less depressed about working here, so, I guess that’s something. I got a little plaque that says I’m hot stuff and, best part of all, a reserved parking place near the front of the building so I don’t have hike 500 miles from the employee parking lot. Good times… or so you would think.

The lot in front of the building I work in is pretty small and sits right in the middle of campus. There are a handful of parking lots all over campus and they’re all much larger, they just require a walk of the equivalent of two blocks, at most. (I think that’s a worst-case scenario, too. It’s probably closer to one block.) As with all parking lots in America, people tend to drive around for 20 minutes for the closest possible spot. All in the name of cutting 30 seconds off of the time they spend walking. This is especially true in this little lot where my reserved parking space is as the cafeteria and bakery are in this building and spaces fill up fast during lunch hour.

(SIDE NOTE: I love that it remains a mystery as to why the percentage of Americans that are overweight grows every year. You’re going to a bakery to buy sweet, fatty foods + you want to walk as little as possible to get to those foods + you also complain about the flight of stairs inside the building where the bakery is located and then take the elevator = You ask, “Why am I so fat?” It’s a mystery!)

My space resides in this little lot. There is even a sign stating that my space is “RESERVED FOR THE EMPLOYEE OF THE QUARTER.” It’s on a post that was stuck into a bucket and filled with concrete so it doesn’t go anywhere. This all makes it a little hard to miss as it’s sitting right in the middle of the parking space. You pull into the spot and there’s a sign right in your face. Lately, people have been taking my spot when I leave for lunch even though there’s this totally conspicuous sign there. I’ve been absolutely flabbergasted (Yes, I said, “flabbergasted.”) that someone could just be that audacious. I don’t know if they just can’t read, or if they think, “Hey, I PAY to go to school here so, screw it,” or if they really just don’t care that they’re taking something that belongs to someone else. (In my experience, laziness does tend to override any sense of propriety.) Regardless of their justifications, this is just not cool.

A couple of weeks ago, the parking space stealers cranked it up a notch. I went home during my lunch break, as usual, and when I came back, guess what I saw? No, seriously. I want you to guess. No, it wasn’t a liger. That would be cool, though, as we all know they’re bred for their skills in magic. Okay, I’ll tell you. Someone had not only stolen my reserved parking space, which was totally rude, but they had actually moved the sign down two spaces so it stood in front of someone else’s car! They totally tried to frame someone else for their jerk-like actions. I’m still so stunned by this that I’m actually chuckling to myself as I tell the story for the tenth time. How can someone pull that kind of crap and still look at themselves in the mirror? Un-freakin’-believable.

Today, I have a bright orange parking cone that blocks off my parking space. For some reason, people take a random orange cone much more seriously than a sign that says a space is reserved for someone that is not them. Now, any time I arrive at work, I have to stop, get out of my car, move the cone, and pull into my spot. When I leave, it’s the same deal. Rain, snow, whatever, I’m out of my car, moving around a little orange cone before I can park. I just did the math and it’s actually causing me to expend 3.7 times the effort as when I just parked in the employee lot. So, this is what it means to have a major award. *sigh* Congratulations to me.