I'm a friend of Bill E.

A big THANK YOU to my neighbor Bill for fixing my car. Let me explain (it's been a lousy week). Okay...so Tuesday I go to turn in my enrollment card. Wait, I have to go back further than that. Okay, so I was SECOND in line to actually meet with my advisor to pick classes, and we are supposed to be able to enroll online...so I try to enroll afterward online and it tells me they are not taking online enrollment YET. So I try again when they ARE taking online enrollment and it tells me my classes are closed. Of course, by now I have no idea where my original enrollment card (signed by my advisor that will get me into the closed classes) is, but eventually I find it. (Now, I should interject here that I tried to hand-deliver the card to the graduate office from the very beginning, but there was no parking available when I went so I took it home to try the online stuff.) So I go back, yet again, to the Graduate office and LO, there is a parking spot. So I park, get out of the car, and the wind catches the damn enrollment card and it goes flying. But alas, someone catches it and gives it back to me and I am off to the Graduate office, where it takes me about three minutes to have them enroll me and override the system. Whereupon I go back out to my car to find a parking ticket. WHAT? I take it off the windshield and it says $50 for parking in a fire lane and "fine doubles if not paid within ten days." Okay...when did they put a fire lane in? That parking has always (for as long as I have been at the University...which is, off an on, at least five years now) been a 15 minute parking zone. And other cars were parked there, too (also ticketed). And I was only in it for maybe five minutes, tops. So I look and, sure enough, they have painted the curb (which I could not see because of the other cars parked there) red. They didn't let anyone know about the change, no e-mail update, no sign, nothing. So I took my little ticket into the Business Office and told them what happened and asked when the hell they had turned our parking spots into a damn fire lane. They said it was painted the previous week and nothing was sent out, but if I took the ticket to Security (and having no prior tickets) and explained it to them NICELY that they might waive it or reduce it to $5. But the lady I need to talk to is only in between 10 and 2. So the next day I let my class out early so I can get to Security before 2:00. I find (eventually) the building, but I have driven past the guest parking by the time I spot the office. So I have to back up. Only, the red curb isn't the only one I miss. This time there is a section of curb protruding--for some ridiculous reason which is still not clear to me--into the parking lot...and I run over it. Not a big deal...just a curb, right? WRONG! Apparently the road sloped down, but the curb remained level, so once I backed all the way over I was a good 18 inches off the road and the drop jacked up the running board on my car. So now my $50 ticket has turned into a $500 deductible. DAMN IT! Anyway, I picked up the pieces (of the clamps that hold the panel in place, as it turned out) and stuck them in the car and proceeded to the Security office where I DID get my ticket waived. And was told that they have no intention of telling the school at large that the parking lot has been changed. Nice, thanks. So I went on my (pissed off) way with the running board piece sticking out at the back and hoping that it didn't fall off if I hit a bump. It looked like something that could just be stuck back in place, but this was not working for me. Fortunately Bill, the neighbor, works on cars for a living and he was able to figure it out. The last clamp piece was broken, so I would have to replace the WHOLE panel to fix it exactly the right way, but he was able to move the various clamps around so they were evenly spaced (and use the one I saved from the "site") and now it looks almost as good as new. And so I will not have to shell out $500 immediately to cover the deductible. The moral of this story is--if you back up over a curb, for God's sake go forward IMMEDIATELY and find another way! Save your car! Watch the curbs for new and ticketable changes. And always live next to someone who knows more about cars than you do. Thanks Bill!