There’s that famous saying, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” to which I think the only rational response can be: “Good.” The SBM and I drove across Kansas today in a trip that took, best estimate, forty-three hours and destroyed something precious in my soul. You can drive for hours and swear you’re in the same place because it all looks the same. Kansas is a vast emptiness, full of nothingness as far as the eye can see, and, to quote novelist Terry Pratchett (who admittedly wasn’t talking about Kansas but totally could have been), “All you can say about the place is it isn’t anywhere else.” Near as I can tell, the only thing Kansas has going for it is that it keeps Nebraska and Oklahoma from scraping.

Now, understand, I’m not some big-city snot who looks down his nose at anything smaller than a metropolis and can’t come to grips with something as bland as a meadow. I’m a small-town boy who came from a one-horse burg where the horse took off without leaving a forwarding address. I know about empty horizons, big-ass fields, and large gaps between towns, but Kansas does all these things like it has something to prove. There is literally nothing for miles, and then, when there is something, it leaves you wishing it had actually been nothing because the something is so pathetic. Although I can’t explain exactly how, I’m sure if we eliminated it as a state, divided it into fourths and gave a chunk to each of the neighboring states, the contents of each quarter would instantly improve.

Maybe it’s unfair to trash an entire state based on a single car ride along a single interstate. Maybe Kansas has lots of interesting features, friendly citizens, and a rich culture. Maybe it’s more than just large swaths of grass dotted with the occasional cow, ramshackle towns, and filthy truck stops.

Maybe, but I ain’t going back to check.

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I’m still seeing a lot of those giant ribbon magnets on people’s cars these days. You know the ones. They’re shaped like the little pins all those celebrity doofs wear on the awards shows to display their support for some cause or another. This is a fad I thought would have vanished long before now, just like Baby on Board signs and suction-cup Garfields, but it persists, spurred on by people’s deep desire for anonymous motorists to know what they believe in.

The one I’ve been seeing the most is this huge yellow ribbon that says “Support our troops.” OK, I’m at a red light behind you, I see your magnet… now what? What, exactly, am I supposed to do at this stage? Support the troops, right, got that. How? How would you recommend I do that? For that matter, what are you doing? Besides spending a couple bucks on a mass-produced magnet that gives money to some company cashing in on patriotism, I mean. You think driving to McDonald’s with a magnet on the back of your gas-guzzling SUV is helping the troops overseas? You really want to support the troops? Send ‘em plane tickets home. I think they’d like that better.

You know what I’m waiting for? When people get tired of this magnet craze in a little while and they all take them off and discover to their horror that they still have a magnet-shaped mark permanently embedded into their paint. A silhouette where the dirt and sun haven’t affected the paint the same and will always be visible until they repaint the entire car. That’s gonna be a lot of fun. Hey, maybe the car-painting companies are the ones making the magnets.

I could support that.

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OK, I’m sure we’ve all seen street signs like the one above. Fairly common, right? The baffling thing to me is, most times when I see them, they’re lying on the ground, still attached to their metal poles because someone has driven over them and knocked them down. I understand accidents happen but… this is a sign that specifically tells you to drive around it! Do not drive on this area. That’s the very clear, unmistakable message of this sign. There’s an obstacle here. Go around. So how do people keep driving over these things? Are they driving around in the dark with their headlights off and their eyes closed? I envision them driving along, squinting, trying to make out the vague shape floating in the darkness ahead, peering through the windshield as it gets closer, a little clearer, almost have it… oh crap!

You don’t see stop signs or speed limit signs plowed over and lying on the side of the road. Crosswalk, yield, do not enter, no passing zone, all safe. But the one sign that tells you clearly to give it some room gets run down with astonishing frequency. Come on, people, there’s other ways to rebel.

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Recently I wrote about our woes with the deplorable parking situation at our apartment complex, and how the office threatened to tow my fiancée’s legally parked car. I also mentioned how some people even park in the blue-slashed no-parking area next to the handicapped spot and how I wished death upon them. Well, this weekend I got my chance to make that happen.

I left the house on Saturday to go get some groceries and spotted a car once again in the blue-slashed area. Had the weather been colder, I might have gone back upstairs for a jug of water and poured it all over their car, taking special care to fill the door locks and gas tank. But the temperature was above freezing and I had stuff to do, so I headed out. When I returned, the car was still there. This was about 4:00 in the afternoon, which meant the car had been there all night and most of the day. Seemed likely it might be there the rest of the night. Seeing an opportunity to help these asshats get what they deserved, I headed over to the office to report them. Why not? Somebody called in bad info on my fiancée, seemed only fair that I call in good info on someone actually doing something wrong.

I popped into the office which was thankfully empty and collared one of the office chair-warmers. Here’s how the conversation went:
“Hey, wanted to let you know there’s a car over at building two that’s illegally parked in the blue-slashed no-parking spot next to the handicapped zone.”
“They’re parked in the handicapped spot?”
“No, the spot next to it.”
“Well, that’s okay.”
“How is that okay? It has blue slashes painted across it. That’s universal for ‘don’t park here.’”
“Oh, that spot. I thought you meant the other spot next to the handicapped spot. Yeah, they shouldn’t park there. Do they have handicapped plates or a hang tag?”
“What difference does it make? Handicapped people can’t park there, either. No one can.”
“Oh, right. Do you happen to have their license plate number?”
“No.”
“Okay, well if you want to go back over and get that, along with the make and model of the car, then come back with that information, I’ll pass it along to our courtesy officer.”
“Yeah, but, they’re parked there right now. You can just send your courtesy officer over there. It’s pretty obvious which car they are. It’s big and metal and parked in the no-parking spot. Hard to miss.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Why not? They’re breaking the law. I’m letting you know they’re breaking the law. All you have to do is send over your pet cop and have them towed.”
“We can’t do that without their plate number.”
“He can write it down when he goes over to tow them.”
“Well, we can’t tow them.”
“You can’t–? Why can’t you tow them? They’re breaking the law. Okay? Not just your little apartment complex ‘let’s keep everyone happy’ rules, but the actual law. And you can’t tow them?”
“We can’t do anything without their plate number.”
“*sigh* Okay, say I go get their plate number. What will you do?”
“We’ll let our courtesy officer know.”
“And what will he do?”
“Run the plates.”
“That’s very threatening. And after that?”
“Place a tow warning on their car.”
“And after that happens?”
“After twenty-four hours, if the car hasn’t moved, we’ll call it in to have it towed.”
“Which will take how long?”
“Oh, probably a couple hours.”

So there you have it. I report a driver that’s breaking the law and they refuse to do anything unless I do even more leg work for them, and then their entire response is to put a scary little notice on the car (if they get around to it) that the driver will see and then ignore because he’s moving his car anyway. They couldn’t be bothered to go and check, requiring me to go get all the information for them. And then nothing was going to come of it anyway.

So I left and went home, not bothering to call back with the plate number. The car was still there, and remained through most of Sunday. It finally vanished sometime late Sunday afternoon, before the 24-hour tow warning would have expired anyway. So someone flagrantly breaks the law for three days and nothing is done about it, despite my efforts, while we obey the rules and get a warning–excuse me, courtesy notice–slapped on our car for our trouble.

Shoulda gone with the water jug idea.

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The parking at my apartment complex is a joke. There’s nowhere near enough spots, which means people wind up parking anywhere they can. We get people double-parking, blocking other cars in, which is always fun come Monday morning and you need to go to work. Every weekend, someone ends up parallel parking in front of the fire hydrant. On multiple occasions, someone (and I dearly hope there’s a special room in Hell reserved for these asshats) has parked in the blue-slashed area next to the handicapped space that’s there so the handicapped drivers can get their wheelchairs out.

Now, the fiancée and I follow the rules and only park in designated areas. She doesn’t have as much trouble as I do since she works from home and can usually land a spot when she comes back from running errands in the afternoons. And she’s courteous enough not to take one of the two coveted spots right next to the front entrance, contenting herself with one of the just-decent spots off to the side. So we were both surprised one Saturday night to come home and find a tow warning on her car.

She was legally parked in a designated space. Her license plates were up to date. She wasn’t breaking any rules or laws, but they were threatening to tow her car in 24 hours. And they put this warning on at 8:00 on a Saturday night. What are the odds that we would see it before 8:00 on Sunday? If we hadn’t gone out on the spur of the moment to get a late snack, we never would have seen the notice.

So we look at the tag to see what grievous error she had committed. The warning stated that the car “had not been moved in several weeks.” Well, that was blatantly not true. She’d just driven it the day before. And again two days before that. Something was wrong here. So I tore the warning off (it left a nasty glue residue that took forty minutes of cleaning to remove completely), planning to take it to the office next morning to find out what the deal was.

Sunday morning I popped over and grabbed one of the office drones. Here’s how the conversation went:
“What is this?”
“That’s a parking violation notice.”
“… Yeah, I can read, so I actually kinda knew that part. What I’m asking is, why was this put on my fiancée’s car?”
“Let’s see… It says it hasn’t been moved in several weeks.”
“Again, I can read. Tell you what. Let’s just assume that I’ve read and understood everything written on here. What I don’t understand–and this is what I want you to help me with–is what makes you think the car hasn’t moved in several weeks?”
“We got a call that it hadn’t.”
“But it has. She’s driven it three times this week.”
“Well, we got a call that said it hadn’t.”
“That’s it? One person makes a phone call, you take them at their word, do no further investigation, and this is the response? Instant tow?”
“Oh, we weren’t going to tow your car.”
I point to the tag. “Says right here you’re going to tow it in 24 hours.”
“Oh, no. This is just a courtesy notice.”
I point again. “It says ‘warning’ in four-inch-tall red letters. That’s not very courteous.”
“Well, this is just to let you know that there’s a problem.”
“What problem? The car is legally parked, in working condition, with legal plates. It’s been moved several times this week. We’re not breaking any rules or violating the lease. She works from home and can get a good spot next to the building. She doesn’t even take one of the great spots, which she could. So what’s the problem? What have we done wrong?”
“Well, maybe she shouldn’t park next to the building.”
“Why not? We pay the same amount of rent as everyone else. Why should we have to park farther away just because her situation allows her to get a decent spot?”
“Well, a lot of people live here and we need to keep them all happy.”

So just to clarify: Someone gave the office bad information about my fiancée’s parking and their “courteous” response was to slap a tow warning on her car, at a time when it was unlikely for us to see it in time to do anything about it. Meanwhile, there are people breaking not only the parking rules but the actual law and they receive no punishment, or even threat of punishment. And their answer to keeping everyone happy is to single us out and require us to park at the far end of the lot. That’ll keep us happy, right?

They wound up not towing the car, but it just boggles my mind. They threatened to tow a legally parked car, while ignoring the flagrant parking violations that happen on a near-daily basis. When I mentioned this in our conversation, asking why they didn’t tow the people illegally parked in front of fire hydrants or in no-parking handicapped zones, they told me they didn’t “have the ability to police that sort of thing.” What? You can’t spend five minutes doing a lap around the complex? You’ve got those little golf carts. I’ve seen them. Hop in and take a turn around the lot.

Probably don’t want to lose their parking spot.

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I spent several years as a pedestrian in Chicago before escaping with my life to the relative safety of Indiana. Looking back on it now, I realize that there are several Chicago-specific traffic laws that motorists there follow that I haven’t seen in my new city of residence. So, in case you find yourself driving or–God help you, walking–in Chicago, here are some traffic laws you should be aware of:

• Stop lights are merely suggestions.

• Turn signals are purely for decoration.

• Speed limits are for wusses.

• You are permitted to park anywhere–including sidewalks, the center lane, and on top of pedestrians–provided you turn on your hazards.

• If the light turns green and the first car in line does not begin moving within one-eighth of a second, you are legally required to lay on your horn in an irritated manner. This rule applies to motorists up to and including five cars back from the light.

• If there is more than one lane available, you are permitted to wildly switch between them without warning. Straddling the center line is acceptable provided you do it for less than ten miles at a stretch.

• There is nothing happening on the street that is more important than your current cell phone conversation. Ignore all else.

• You are allowed to blatantly run a red light as long as you do it within five seconds of it changing and you blip your horn in a token warning to people in the crosswalk.

• You needn’t move over for emergency vehicles if you don’t feel like it. They have more important things to do than stop and reprimand you.

• If another car attempts to get in your lane in front of you, they must be denied at all costs. If they signal first, they are showing weakness and must be destroyed.

• In a pedestrian-car collision, the pedestrian will always lose, so that “pedestrians always have the right of way” thing is a buncha crap.

• If you drive a Mercedes, Audi, or BMW, you are clearly a superior human being and exempt from any and all traffic laws or simple acts of decency. Drive as you will.

You’ve been warned.

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Here’s a bumper sticker I want to make for my car:

I’m very happy you found Jesus. Could you ask Him to help you press down on the accelerator harder?

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