First off, a couple of short things.
First off, I am really starting to realize the poor quality of the SFU paper. I’m not talking about the “lets pat ourselves on the back excessively propaganda” paper released by the administration. I’m talking about “The Peak”. The quality of “journalism” ranges from horribly stupid to rather good. Unfortunately, the former of those two qualifiers is the more prevalent quality that you will find there. A guy I know was approached by someone there and asked a question related to the raising of the minimum wage in BC to approximately 8 dollars. They then print some of these responses, next to a picture of the person. He launched into a long, well reasoned account of what this would do to employers and the employees as well. This took about 10 minutes. Then at the end, as he was walking away, they asked him if he had a job. He responded : I don’t’ care. I don’t have a job, I don’t even want a job. So, under the question about the minimum wage, this latter statement was all they printed next to his picture. A statement that was not even the response to that particular question. Needless to say, he’s slightly pissed. I think that they should just start handing this paper out on a roll. That way, it can be easily used in the bathroom where it belongs. If the Peak were a person, it would be true testament to what mother’s are supposed to say – that if you didn’t stop making that face that it really would have stayed that way.
So now we have all kinds of children out buying Harry Potter books. This is a trend that doesn’t have to do with wrestling, video games, or other destructive influences, but with READING BOOKS! SO lets BAN IT! Obviously, a children’s story that involves witches is completely unsuitable for children, and now that its popular, lets ban the books! What the hell is that? I just think that it is just too often that a handful of whackos can make policy change for everyone else. This is one of those rare things that makes me bang my hands on the table when I hear it on the news.
The other day I parked next to a Porsche boxster in the SFU parking lot. The typical student car, if there ever was one. When I came back, it was still there, but there was a guy there with the hood up, adding windshield washer fluid to it out of a Mcdonald’s cup. Not interesting, in itself. However, it got a whole lot more interesting when the owner of the car showed up! Instantly, the guy with the cup dropped it, and ran for his life. I have never seen anyone run down in such short order, but the owner caught him after about five strides, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and dragged him back to his car. “You the one who keeps putting milkshakes in my washer fluid?!!!!”. Apparently, this has happened before, and while he didn’t kick the ass of the milkshake wielding villain, he probably scared him enough to preclude any further infractions. What his motivation was is probably the most interesting part of this story, but sadly, I will never know. With events like that – who needs to make up stories?
Confrontation with others usually comes unexpectedly. The gun waving incident : “Hey! – did you just look at my girlfriend”? The ice tea incident: “uhhhhhh…. why is the ICED tea HOT”? The closet incident: “You call THIS nothing to wear?” The hamster incident: “I’m not going in there after it – YOU go in there after it”! Lets not forget the phone incident: “I am calling my friends in Abbotsford for some human contact”. Ouch! Sometimes though, I can usually expect that some sort of interpersonal conflict will come from a situation imminently inevitable. For instance, signing up for courses at UCFV, buying a parking pass, asking for help in the SFU bookstore, or the recent phone call to the Medical Services Plan of BC as to why they refuse to process my documents now that I am no longer covered under my parental units plan and this has been going on since April and now I am not covered and they refuse to acknowledge that I have TWICE sent in the very same forms that they sent me last week and I want to know why their response is normally something akin to plugging their ears with their fingers and dancing around ethereally saying “we cannot hear you” even though I am imminently due to be smashed into by a bus. Sorry, the punctuation part of my brain is on break. Damn unions!
Hold that thought for a second.
On Friday, after a strange but good day at CementLand I went out to my car. On the windshield there was this parking ticket. Never mind the fact that I bought a parking pass, I managed to pick up a ticket for not having a parking pass “properly displayed”. This – I have to admit, was true. At this point lets split into two different versions of the story. The truth, and the fiction.
the truth: (troooth)noun1.the quality or property of being in accord with fact of reality.
What was mentioned earlier about having actually bought a parking pass for the semester was true. I find it much easier to drive to school and park there for 94 dollars than to go through the visceral agony that is a ride on a Translink bus. What I managed to do to myself was to throw my old parking passes from previous semesters in my glove compartment. When I buy a new parking pass, I also put it in that same glove compartment – which has never seen a pair of gloves either. Although, it does mysteriously contain hair clips and someone’s “scrunchy” – another term which just looks recockulous written down. Just exactly where these items come from I am not sure but suffice to say they are not mine. Being somewhat “dim-witted” – I failed to check if the pass I wrestled from the glove compartment at the beginning of this semester was the correct one. Sadly, it was not. How I managed to get away with an old parking pass (that expired in 1998) for such a long period of time surprises me. Usually the SFU rent-a-cops pick up on such things faster than that.
the fiction: (fik’shun) noun1. novels, short stories, and other prose writings that tell about imaginary, and sometimes read, people and happenings. Both characters and events in fiction may sometimes be partly real. So there.
Once upon a time I bought a parking pass like I mentioned. I faithfully stuck it to the lower left hand corner of my windshield (the only place where it will be accepted) and awaited the merriment that would ensue from being able to park in the wondrous parking experience that is B-lot, or “BLOT” as my pass reads. This is one of those acetate things that stick to glass which is only fair since stickers suck and are hard to remove. Long, long ago, I applied mayonnaise to said windshield in order to get the sticker “stickum” off of my window. Yeah – not a solution that most think of, but try it – it works really well. Consequently, I have a greasy windshield which, with even more consequence, makes those acetate parking passes fall off when the window heats up. So when I get out to my car, my valiant parking pass is facedown on the dash, and the ticket is under my windshield wiper poised to ruin what was otherwise a reasonable day.
Now, exactly which story I told the traffic and insecurity people at SFU I will not divulge short of a cash donation, however, it really isn’t important. For whatever reason, I got a parking ticket even though I had a pass. This was the crux of the story that I gave to the rather severe looking gentleman behind the counter. My argument, you see, was that I obviously deserved citation for my grandiose parking rule infringement, but that I did not deserve to suffer the monetary consequences since, as I mentioned above, I DID have a parking pass.
This is where we return to the section on conflict. Now, this being SFU, and this being a parking ticket, I steeled myself for the battle that I was about to enter into. I imaged all sorts of scenarios, all of them possible within the realm of chance (at SFU), and most of them culminating with my unmarked grave being found out behind the tennis courts in the year 2010, thus explaining my disappearance and the health of the garden. So explained the situation, he retreated to collaborate on my imminent execution with his colleagues : “Well… we can fit him in between that girl from yesterday and the guy who whispered too loud in the library”. Then he pointed to me, and the woman shook her head (seriously). I knew that I, or my wallet, was doomed. When he came back he explained that while I should have “known better” (his exact words) I would get off with a warning this time, but if I did it again, I would get the fine on that occasion. What? This wasn’t how it was supposed to end! I walked out of there with a strange feeling, as though I had just escaped with a lesser experience than I had imagined.
Maybe conflict doesn’t come if it knows you are prepared.