Getting a parking spot here at ETSU can be, and often is, a royal pain in the ass. Let’s face it, thousands of students use the parking lots every day, and the fact of the matter is, there are not enough spots for everyone.
The later you are, the harder it is to find a spot. If you’re extremely unlucky, your habitual lack of punctuality has struck at the worst possible scenario – on the way to the infamous afternoon class. The rush time, somewhere during that three-hour period of classes, sometime in between 10 and 1, in which everyone and their brother’s second cousin have signed up for as well.
The one that occurs in the middle of the day when the sun is at it’s blinding brightest and the drivers are at their unfriendliest; during this rush, brotherhood is forbidden, generosity but a forgotten virtue.
Ronnie Hale, one of our parking enforcers here at the university, claims he has to give out about 60 to 75 tickets in a day, usually worse in the fall semester when ETSU is at it’s busiest. “People want to park closer, and I don’t blame them,” Ronnie said. “The most common offenses are faculty parking and 20-minute parking.”
There are hundreds of kids walking around in the lots, and not one of them seems to be leaving. They’re all just pouring in from mountains that serve as the perfect backdrop to our humble university, and the chances of you finding that glorious open space amongst the sea of sticker-covered sedans are slim, to say the least.
Just what does one do when faced with this situation? Believe it or not, hundreds of students each and every day turn to the criminal route by – oh yes, violating a parking law.
So how do the parking enforcers feel about not exactly being the most popular people on campus amoungst students? Ronnie states that they’ve pretty much been called everything by now. “We don’t usually get any trouble from the students; it’s a rare occasion if we do. They’re pretty understandable for the most part, and they usually know what they’re getting themselves into,” Hale said.
We’ve all been there before. You get out of a long day of class, you get to the car, keys ready, you just want to get the hell out of there – and then, just as you sink comfortably into the familiarity of your rice-burning Japanese import, the realization hits you like a slap in the face as you look up at the very bright and unpleasant yellow ticket on your dash board.
You can literally feel the $50 slipping out of your back pocket. Well, you knew when you parked over that strapping lad in a wheelchair what you were getting yourself into … but sometimes there’s just no other way. So what to do? Is there an alternative?
I’ve noticed several people have gotten really good at riding a pedestrian’s heels right up to their car. Some student-drivers have become extremely talented in spotting the homebound walkers, and at times you would swear they picked up the trail from the moment the poor kid started down the steps of his last class.
Sure, it can be an uncomfortable situation for the stalked student, who is consequentially a nervous wreck after the first mile of being stalked, but it gets the job done.
Others lurk in the parking lot, driving slower than the pedestrian stroll, backing up a five-car line to ensure that by the time they get to the other side of the run they will have had at least three opportunities to pull into the clear.
Few make use of the trolly buses and park down by the hospital – but let’s face it, half of us haven’t even heard about those parking lots and the rest of us are simply too lazy to take advantage. And we are the abused, the ticketed, the fined, the disenchanted violators, if you will; hated by some, feared by few, but sentenced by one: The Parking Officer.

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