An Open Letter to My College’s Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS)

An Open Letter to my College’s Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS)

Dear TAPS,

I hope this letter finds you. I do not care if it finds you well, or finds you horribly, or finds you in the form of litter blowing across a deserted parking lot because the students have all gone broke and gone home.

I’m not able to reach you by phone. You’re unreachable by email. In person hasn’t worked for me yet either. I know you exist, you leave traces of your presence behind in all corners of our school yet you remain hidden. You’re somehow always on lunch when I call or show up. My emails sit in your inbox unread. So perhaps this is the key. I might even roll up this letter and place it in a bottle, release it to sea and hope someone from TAPS responds to me before I leave this school.

Assuming I have finally gotten through to you, let’s proceed.

What I want to say is: I’m sorry.

I’m sorry. Truly, I am.

I can’t imagine growing up and never hearing the words I love you from the people who I hold close to my heart. I don’t know what my life would be like if I never enjoyed an ice cream cone on a hot day. What is life for someone who does not smile or ever receive a smile? I know this is only a fracture of what you must carry with you, and I feel for you. It’s these terrible experiences that lead someone like you to the position you’re in, I’m sure. I mean, there’s simply no other explanation.

I personally could never be as strong as you. I could never, ever, watch a young woman emerge from her car in tears, struggling to lift out overflowing grocery bags, and sit idly by until she walks away and go place a $75 ticket on her windshield. Especially not within the measly five minutes it took for her to run inside and drop off aforementioned groceries. Not a lot of people could do what you do.

Some college kids are barely making rent each month and are rushing to class, praying to God that they won’t get ticketed the one time they park outside of a “Pay Now” spot. It takes a real hero to lift their windshield wiper and leave that $75 ticket for them to return to.

And hey! Don’t let anyone give you a hard time about ticketing someone who told you they would be right back and begged you to park without a permit because they started their period and needed to get to a bathroom. That’s not your fault! They could “just hold it,” (as one of your employees so kindly told me once).

People are unfair to you. Worry not though, because I see you. I notice how you put your life at risk each and every day to make sure these people learn their lesson. I appreciate how much work you put in so that the school can take more money, because we simply are not giving them enough.

I don’t know how anyone could take the struggling college kid’s side over yours.

In fact, I don’t know why we’ve stigmatized meter maids. Why should you be afraid to put on the bright yellow vest? I say, you should be proud. You should be met with honor as you park your university-funded SUVs alongside our piece-of-shit cars. You go out day after day and willingly put yourselves in dangerous situations, aware of what it could cost you. Aware of the harsh reality that you could get flipped off or quite possibly honked at. Yet you persist. Please, keep persisting.

So thank you, TAPS people, for lacking some soul and empathy in all the right places. The school needs you. The country needs you. Our chancellor’s next raise needs you.

Sincerely,

Position #164 on the remote parking pass waitlist

A Second, Most Honest Open Letter to my College’s Transportation and Parking Services

Dear TAPS,

You will never win.

I am free and you are not and I hope that haunts you every day you choose to put on the ugly fucking vest and take yourself to those parking lots.

My diploma is on my wall watching me proudly as I write to you again, as I did all those years ago when I thought you’d be the end of me.

You weren’t. $1200 did not stop them from giving me the fancy piece of paper listing my name and major. I even got an alumni licence plate cover. It now lives on the car you once booted.

You will never see me or my 2010 Toyota Yaris again. Send the bills. Threaten collections, I don’t care. I’m free.

That’s something you will never understand. Your soul is tied to a dark and evil history that is built on the blood of students past. I mourn them but I will not join them. My car will not be booted by you again.

If one day I park for three hours in a two hour spot on the streets of San Francisco and a ticket finds its way under my wiper, I won’t be mad. I won’t write an open letter to the city of San Francisco. Instead I’ll pay it off and perhaps hang it on my fridge. I’ll cherish it, knowing it came from a real authority figure and not from the hands of a fool in the vest of a jester.

We laugh at you, I hope you know.

We all do.

One day you’ll laugh too, but not from humor.

It will be a fear response, for when your time comes and you meet your end you’ll realise the true grave you dug for yourself choosing the life you did.

I will be waiting.

You won’t get to pass on to the next life for free.

No no, old friend. Nothing is free.

It will cost you $75.

You’ll never be able to afford it.

You’ll spend eternity paying off $75.

I will be laughing.

You will never win.