Rachel's Misadventure as a College Student

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!