Park it

Parking is one of those things that you never really think about... until you live in the city. Then it becomes a commodity just short of potable water in a gritty post apocalyptic film (SPACE PIRATES!!) and/or your average desert. You never know how obsessed you can become with finding a spot to put your vehicle. Having lived on Cap Hill for just shy of two years now, I find myself eying every street for hydrants, pay boxes, and those inane little signs posting the arbitrary hours of towable parking; I find myself with a phone full of calendar set alarms to notify me when I might need too move my car if I chose to park it in a certain place. I may shortly be on a first name basis with every meter maid and tow truck driver in the greater Seattle area.

It becomes sort of an endless cycle: there's no appreciably feasible option for all-day parking in my neighborhood, meaning that my quest for the futher spot must breach further afoot. Should it be the little strip of unregulated parking on tenth combined with a bus to get to school? Should I park my car twenty minutes away at my boyfriend's house and walk to school? Should I go to the lot that requires twenty minutes of steep stair climbing action? Should I suck it up and park nearer to school? Last year, I found a lot that was near to school and which cost only 4 dollars for the whole day (that's the same price as a round trip on the bus!). For a good quarter, all was well. Then mid-winter - disaster! My parking lot became the new campsite for the traveling tent city and my entire schedule was thumped askew. Eventually the lot-qua-city returned to its roots and accepted cars again, but had raised the price to 5 dollars for the day. Bristling at the indignity, I tried various alternatives, but mostly stuck with it until I decided to suck it up and move to the lot further afoot - the one requiring the alpine hike to get to class, but which charged only 4 per day and was near the gym. Once my classes started running deep into the the darker hours, this hike through a woody and reputedly less-safe area seemed decreasingly savory, and by winter I'd returned too my original lot.

Until yesterday. I arrived at my lot to find that the price had inexplicably been raised yet another dollar! Not the worst thing in the world, since I don't need to park there every day, but it still adds up. After a customary bristle, I set to paying for my ticket at the little box. It, of course, did not work. Or, well, it worked quite well, actually. It charged my car but refused to print a ticket (and vicarious experience has taught me that absent a ticket, payment means nothing for this box and its minions). So, in a fair hurry at this point, I tried the other payment option, involving an extra 25 cent charge and some telephone menus. I fastidiously checked the information to make sure it was the correct lot and license number. My card was confirmed. Yet, of course, by the time I returned from my full day at school, I had a $35 ticket on my windshield. So, parking effectively went from $5 to 47.25. Needless to say, I spent some fairly contentious time on the phone with the lot managers who have claimed that my ticket is no more (I'm expecting calls from an aggressive collections agent in about six months, claiming that the interest rates mean I now owe 500.25).

Needless to say, I'm in the market for a new lot once again. I think today, it will be the boyfriend's house/walk to school, although this is less appealing when I have the 9 am class and those extra thirty pounds of poorly distributed bags, books, and blaptops (I was on an alliterative run too good to stop) can do wonders to the back after twenty minutes. If somebody could invent a folding car, they'd make millions. I'm just saying.