Dear UF Transportation and Parking Services,

Did you enjoy your Thanksgiving break? I hope so, because obviously you stayed pretty late on the Tuesday evening before -- just as I did. Wow, you and I, one of only a few left in the Gainesville Ghost Town before break. I was actually just about to head home to my loving family, Tuesday night around 9 p.m., when I arrived at my car in the deserted Hume Parking Garage on Gale Lemerand Drive. To my joyous surprise, I found a ticket tucked neatly under my windshield wiper. Let me back up and say I have gotten 13 parking tickets this semester. But I was in the correct color-designated spot with the correct decal. What could this ticket possibly be for? "Outside the lines."

I am looking at the lines and I am gonna be honest with you, Parking Police, I'm pretty inside the line. Wow, the obscenities I shouted, but no one was there to hear because no one was still on campus or parked in the garage. 

Seriously though, who was I bothering? It was obvious that my less-than-perfect parking job was keeping so many cars from parking around me, right? Because the parking lot was jam-packed full of students fighting for spots, right? No. Everyone was home. 

You just wanted to ticket someone and I was the only car on campus left for you to ticket. What an angry ticket it was. Shouldn't you have been in a good mood? Off to see your family for Thanksgiving, eat delicious food, not have to work. Why, oh why, did you have to take your anger out on the poor student who obviously had to stay later than most other students for classes? 

I admit, of my 13 tickets, some were deserved. I forgot to move my car before 7:30 a.m from the night before, or parked my scooter in a regular car spot. I get it. But most have been the most ridiculous, far-fetched excuse for giving tickets and charging me $30. I continue to appeal tickets like these, as I will do with this one, and I will not let the wrath of you tyrants ruin my semester.

We students already pay steep prices for your decals to be able to park on campus every semester -- around $77 dollars a semester and $154 for the year. But, now, I am additionally paying hundreds of dollars more in undeserved tickets. Give us poor college students a little bit of a break. Especially during holiday breaks. 

Happy holidays to you, too, penny-pinching parking peeps! I will make sure to bring a centimeter ruler next time I park in the Hume Parking Garage. 

Sincerely,

One of thousands of outraged students