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Urban Cadence

Fine, suit yourself

Wednesday, Apr. 06, 2005 @ 8:19 p.m.

This society is so tainted by selfish ulterior motives that people just don't recognize pure, unadulterated acts of random kindness anymore.

Okay, so I was on campus today, where a daily parking pass is very expensive. Even if you found a metered spot, a quarter can only buy you 8 exorbitant minutes. Through a stroke of pure luck though, I found a broken parking meter, which meant that I could park for an entire day without having to pay for the daily parking pass, nor having to feed the gluttonous parking meters. FREE PARKING. Sweet! So that was great. Really made my day.

Fast forward to the end of my day, when I was about to get in my car to leave. Seeing that this metered spot was somewhat out-of-the-way and kinda not in public view, I decided to give it up to a deserving stranger that might not have seen it until after they'd paid the extortion fee. So I went to the line of cars that were waiting buy a daily parking pass. I knocked on a window of the first car, and gave my sales pitch to a slightly overweight Asian guy. All I said was this: "Hey, I got a obscure broken meter over there, and I'm leaving right now and I hate to see it go to waste. Do you wanna take over?"

It's not a complicated question, is it? I'm offering you a freebie, for gawd's sake! But after a few seconds of deliberation (gawd knows what he was deliberating about), he said, "No, thanks." I was taken aback. But I quickly came to dismiss him as a stupid idiot, and went on to the car behind him. It was a chubby little girl. I gave the same pitch: "Hey, I'm parked at a broken meter over there where it's kinda hidden, and I'm leaving right now. Do you wanna take advantage of it?"

She said, "Umm, no thanks" and wound up her window. At this point I was dumbfounded. What the hell is going on with these people?? I'm trying to offer them a freebie, and they'd rather pay for a parking spot that they could get for free?!?

After labelling chubby girl as yet another idiot, I went to the car behind her. A ditzy blonde. I gave her my pitch again. But this time, as soon as I said, "You wanna park over there?", she said "I don't know", and quickly wound up her window, as if I had the plague.

WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!? I wanted to save them their money, not offer them a handjob for crack!! I wasn't even asking for any money!

Frustrated, I shook my head and walked back to my car and left. I don't know who got my million-dollar-parking spot later on, but I sure hope it wasn't those 3 idiots. I'm still wondering why they didn't take me up on my offer, though. I don't think I'm a scary-looking person, and I'm usually pretty well-dressed, so I don't think they'd mistaken me for a bum. Maybe they thought that I wanted them to pay me for the spot or something, I dunno.

Well, whatever. As they say, "A fool and his (or her) money are soon parted", and I just found 3 of them. I try to perform an act of community service, and I got insulted instead. Yeesh.

So if anybody out there is thinking of selling bottled air or radioactive drinking water, I got 3 customers for you right over here.

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