Ok, a lot of you might have heard about my
first-day-of-college adventure, but for those of you who haven’t, or who
haven’t heard the whole story, I will now reveal the full, true story. On my
first day, I woke up to rain pounding on the window… Of course… Anyway, I got
ready and left in plenty of time to get there and find buildings, classrooms,
bathrooms and such as that. When I arrived on campus, I started looking for a
parking spot. Keep in mind, I was terribly nervous, I was not familiar with this
place, and it was pouring cats, dogs, and maybe even a few elephants and hippos.
I drove around and around and around campus at least a half dozen times for
over twenty minutes, and was starting to get desperate. When I looked at the
clock and realized that my class started in less than ten minutes, I seriously
started panicking, “God, please help me find a parking place!” I was having
visions of my English teacher calling “Rachel Laird? .... Does anyone know
her?” and then I would walk in dripping puddles all over the floor… I jerked my
mind back to the issue of a parking place, and lo and behold, before my eyes
was an empty parallel parking spot! Only one problem. I had never in my life
even attempted to parallel park. Never mind that; I put all of the Laird
hardheadedness into getting into that spot. God helping me, I got in without
denting the cars around me (at least nothing that showed), but it took me over
five minutes. I ran all the way to class, and actually made it on time! I was
so proud of myself… for at least an hour and a half! About that time, in the
middle of concert choir practice, a big, gruff, black security guard walked into
the auditorium. “I’m looking for a young lady from Lauderdale County who drives
a green Altima.” As I was trying to fall through the floor, “Ms. B”, our choir
director, looked at him, because choir is not
to be interrupted. He continued, “It’s a bit of an emergency; she has blocked
the President’s driveway.” My mind was immediately filled with images of the
President (who is a very nice man, actually) standing in his driveway, tapping
his foot. “Young lady, you have made me late for a very important meeting
involving millions of dollars.” I ran as fast as I could (and y’all that know
me well, you know that I do not run for just anything) to my car, thinking as I
ran of what on earth I was going to say to the President. Thankfully the only
thing visible as I neared my car was the yellow ticket under my windshield
wiper. Dr. Stewart was nowhere to be seen. I quickly moved my car, and looked
at the ticket. Ten dollars. That wasn’t too bad. In my defense, with all of the
rain, I just didn’t see the driveway on the other side. I know, it was very
stupid, but I have to rationalize it away somehow. The story has now spread. I
told a couple of people, they told a few more people, and it is now to the point
that I have random people walking up to me and asking, “So, gotten any more
parking tickets lately?” At least half of the campus has heard about it, and
most of the churches in our association announced it to their congregations.
Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but it was announced at my church and my grandfather’s church! To clear
the matter up, no, I have not gotten any more parking tickets… I’m never going
to live that down… At least I will always remember my first day of college!
