"You Shouldn't Not Write For So Long"

I've been neglecting my blog for about a month now it seems. Time flies. It's sort of sad that I've been waiting for something worthy enough to write about to happen. Lots has happened, but some of it I can't write about. The rest of it I'm too lazy to write about. There are really general concepts I could pontificate about, but I'm trying to avoid that. For now, I'll just stick to writing about crap that happened in the past (partly because most laws have a statute of limitations).

My senior year at the U I was at the computer lab in the engineering building working on my senior project. I got there at about 4pm and parked in the lot I must've parked in hundreds of times. I must not have been paying much attention to the rental chain link fence around the lot that was there during construction. I was paying especially little attention to the little bitty sign that said,

No parking after 5pm during construction. Lot closes.

Or you know, something to that effect. So when I came out of the lab after working for about 4 hours I realized mine was the only car left. I thought that was odd since the computer lab was still full of dorks working on their projects. Then I realized that the one exit had been closed off with a sliding chain link gate, completing the circuit of the fence that now fully enclosed the lot. Damn.

I imagined the worker whose job it was to lock the padlock. I imagined him getting a kick out of the fact that some poor moron wasn't gonna get to his Jeep until the morning. I imagined that he was gonna be the one to open the gate in the morning and that he was so excited to stand by and watch me run to my car, thanking him for my freedom, as he laughs to himself. Clearly I couldn't have it that way. Something about being a Nelson or a Locke or the combination thereof does not allow such things.

I called Kjersti on my cell phone and told her that my car was locked in. She was like, "what are you going to do?" I said, "hmmm, I'll call you back."

I tried to do the right thing. I looked for phone numbers on the signs. The only one I could find was for the rental fence company. So I gave it a shot. They laughed at me. Then I called the campus police, but they redirected me to the parking and transportation department, who forwarded me to someone else in the department, who forwarded me back to the same person, who finally forwarded me to a voicemail. So I gave in to the Nelson instinct and took matters into my own hands.

I walked over to the union and grabbed the manager's toolkit, walked back to the lot, and started disassembling the gate. People walking by chuckled to themselves and then tried to pretend like they didn't see anything. I unbolted the hinges and knocked the whole thing over. I made an opening more than big enough to fit my car through. Then I drove out, back to the union, and returned the tools. I didn't bother to reassemble the fence.

I called Kjersti back and told her what happened. She was thrilled but worried I'd get in trouble.

I drove home thinking about the same imaginary worker, who was now bound to show up for work in the morning to say to himself, "touché... touché...". I also thought about my dad and this piece of metal he keeps in his desk; half of a link of a very thick chain. It's from way back when he and my mom were dating. They worked at the phone company downtown together. My mom parked her car illegally, apparently enough times that this time she got a barrel chained to her wheel. She called my dad that night in a panic. He brought his hacksaw.

Like I said, it's in my blood.