So, last night, (Sunday night), I had to pull an all-nighter to complete an aerospace engineering project that is worth 1/3rd of my grade. However, my partner and I were both out of town for most the day, and so last night was the first time we had been to campus since Halloween. It's a Sunday night, so I expected to roll up near campus, slide my car right into one of those glorious free parking spots you never find in the midst of morning rush hour.

Wrong. My campus decided to host a wonderful little Obama rally last night, around 9pm. If anyone knows how a small city can be, even Cincinnati, they know that parking is hard to come by, especially free parking. Because I'm a cheapo college student, I don't just have money lying around to spend on keeping my car in one spot for a few hours, I just don't. So when I saw this Obama rally, I was pissed. I mean, c'mon. A rally, for Obama, in the most messed-up, liberal neighborhood in all of Cincinnati... on a Sunday night.

I spend nearly a half an hour moseying around off-campus, looking for parking. I go to my usual spots, nearly two miles off-campus. Nothing. I check for any open meters. Nothing. And so, after spending thirty minutes, after throwing all of that time down the drain, I find, can you guess? Nothing! My only option is to park in one of the garages. I roll up, saddened that I had to spend $5 just to allow my car to stay within a 5 mile radius of campus, and look to the guy working for the University of Cincinnati. I tell him I'm a university student looking for parking, that I couldn't find a single spot anywhere off-campus, and that I was going to be staying here all through the night. He gave me my little ticket thing and I asked, again, whether or not it would be okay if I left my car there overnight. He said, 'Sure!' $5, lunch for a day, two and a half gallons of gas, you know, other important things. All gone. Why? Because of Obama.

I thought this was the end of it. I was pissed, came into the lab rooms with all the other aerospace kids, where we proceeded to argue over the pros and cons of Obama, and blah blah blah. Then, we start to get work done. We work from 10pm till 8am, and then from 9am to 1pm. We completed our project. We went to our classes. We ate lunch. We said goodbye. And, I return to the garage.

It's approximately 4pm, and I've been up since 10am the previous morning, I'm just not in a good mood. I'm tired, battered, and just exhausted. I could've passed out at that very moment, when suddenly... guess what? Yeah, you guessed it, my parking pass for the Obama event was not valid. I didn't have any money or plastic on me to pay any sort of fee, and so I drive to the nearest parking spot in the garage and call UC's parking services.

I have around 8971359871 different calls with them over the next hour. They directed me to other people and various different phone numbers. I had a girl come on the line and she was mean and even cynical with me. I said, "one of the University of Cincinnati workers told me I could leave my car here overnight with this special event parking pass that I paid $5 for. I couldn't find a single available spot off of campus and after thirty minutes of searching, this was my last resort. Now, I paid the $5 for the pass and now I'm not allowed to leave, what do I do? The man I spoke to said I could leave the next day, no problem, what's going on?" She responded very bluntly and was even laughing at me. "Nonononono," she said, "You can't stay here overnight, especially after special event parking. What did you think? You could leave your car there overnight for only $5??" I said, "Well, what do I do?' She said, "Well, you've got to pay that $8.75 to get out. It's as if you lost your ticket." I said, "Is that the only way I can get out of here?" "... YES, hello?? You HAVE to pay that $8.75 to get out." I mumbled something like, "Wow, thanks for stealing my money," but she hung up before I could say anything. I spend 20 more minutes thinking of various ways I could get out of there. I couldn't steal someone's parking pass to swipe near the gate magnets, I couldn't ask someone to double swipe for my car, because our garages don't work like that. I couldn't think of a single thing, other than waiting to hear some more from Parking Services. I called them and told them I was being detained against my will, that I already paid for my damn parking pass, that I couldn't believe this was happening,that I couldn't just pay $13.75 for parking in a single night, and that I didn't even have to money to do that.

Finally, after about an hour or more of life or death run-throughs, someone automatically opened the gate for me, while I was on the phone with them. They told me to never do it again or expect the same treatment from them in the future.

How ridiculous is that? Seriously?
I can't wait to vote for John McCain and see him win this election. John McCain never ruined my life like Barack Obama did, today and last night.