Car Woes... Big City Initiation

Well, I've been very fortunate thus far in my adventures in CO, and haven't had any major run-ins with law enforcement or other scary folks like that.

Until last week.

And last week was a doozy.

I commute (and hate it).  This is no secret.  Every day, I leave an hour before my first class in order to brave traffic, find a parking spot, and walk the quarter mile or so to get to class on time.  Every day, I park on 18th street, and every day I have no problems.  

I did the usual last Wednesday, but when I went to my car in the afternoon, it wasn't there.  I was on the phone with my mom, and was secretly freaking out, but didn't want her to know, just in case I was freaking out for no reason.  

I wasn't freaking out for no reason.  After some research involving several phone calls and internet searches, I found my car at a local towing place  I had (apparently) parked right in front of someone's driveway.  Now, why or how I could possibly have done that, I don't know.  But there are apparently pictures to prove it.  I don't know if I turned my brain off completely, or if I just am dumb, or what happened, but it happened.  

After locating my car, I had to go to the Boulder PD to get a release.  From there, I had to go to the place to get my car.  $108 later, I was driving away, (un)happy as a clam.

Then, to top things off, on Saturday night, I drove to Boulder for my friend Jackie's senior recital.  It was snowy and I was running a little late, so I was in a hurry.  After arriving in Boulder, I came across a stoplight.  It turned yellow, and I tried to slow down, but failed miserably on the snow-packed, icy roads.  When I finally stopped, I was over halfway through the intersection and the light turned red.  Then, I saw the camera on the stoplight take a picture of my car.

Needless to say, I was not pleased.  It was most definitely not my fault.  At all.  I don't know how exactly they'll get my ticket to me, but I plan to be preemptive and head over to the PD this week to see the process and defend my case.

All of this sucks.  A lot.  I'm trying to view it as a way of welcoming tme to city life.  

I'd rather not have been initiated.

North Dakotans: Nice

Let's face it: It happens. 

You know what it is.

It happens to some more than others. 

When it comes to car batteries dying, it happens to me the most.  Or at least that's how it seems. 

I know exactly why it happens to me: I tend to be careless.  Not just in leaving my car lights on, but in life.  When I cook, one might think that a bomb has gone off in the kitchen.  When I paint, my clothes and hair get just as much paint on them as the thing I'm painting does.  I drop electronics in the toilet and put them through cycles in the washing machine.  I've locked my keys in my car so many times that I have a spare in my purse and one on the body of my car in case I lock my purse in my car, too (which has happened.  several times). 

I'd like to think that these things going wrong by my own fault is because I'm such a genius that I don't have time to consider those "little" things.  But 1) I'm not that conceited, and 2) I know it's just carelessness.

Thank goodness for kind North Dakotans who have come to my rescue in innumerable situations (I'm generalizing a bit, because usually these "kind" NoDak-ers are also my friends).  We are infamously nice people.  We come from the conservative Heartland of America, where people go to church every Sunday, everyone works hard, and we are all down-to-earth.

In October, when Jettie was here (read all about her visit here and here), we went to Denver for a day of sightseeing.  We had spent all day on our feet after an early morning and needed a nap, so we headed back to the parking garage to take a nap in my car.  We turned on the radio for some tunes and fell asleep.  Wouldn't you know... when we woke up, my battery was dead.  It was getting dark in the garage, and after some running around, we located a portable jumper thingy.  Just as the two of us and a (female) security guard were hooking the thing up, a car with a whole family pulled into the space next to mine.   Don't get me wrong, because we knew what we were doing, and we weren't struggling, but did any of those 5 or 6 people even ask if they could help in any way?  Did they leave their lights on so we could see better?  Did they even look our direction?  No.  They just walked away.

Things went just fine without their help; we had no problems.  But had this happened in ND, half the city of Gwinner would have come to help without even being asked.  It happens at the Medora Musical all the time: someone leaves their lights on, and an employee drives their personal car over to jump them.  It's not a big deal, and takes maybe 5 minutes of our time.

This summer, I jumped someone's car, and they offered to pay me.  OF COURSE I refused payment.  And I'm pretty positive that had I accepted the money, the man would have bitched about it the whole way home to Fargo.  It's general knowledge that it's polite to offer money with the knowledge that the one who has helped you won't accept payment.  It's just how it works.  We do it because we're nice, and because if we were in the same situation, we would expect a free jump.

Apparently, people around here don't get that.  That won't stop me from helping whenever I can.  In fact, I helped someone jump their car today.  Did I have to?  No.  I did it because I'm a nice person.  Did I get anything out of it?  Aside from this blog topic, no.  Is it even worth blogging about?  Maybe not.  But I did anyway.  Live with it.

Keep being nice, kids.  Keep being nice.

public transportation

Boulder's public transportation system is amazing.  Not just by my standards, because I don't have enough knowledge and experience with public transportation to be able to judge fairly. 

People here are known for their environmental conscientiousness, and partly because of that, they ride buses.  In addition, parking in Boulder, particularly near campus, is atrocious.  There are 29,000 students here, and there isn't enough parking nearby for all of the commuters.  

In addition to a local bus system in the city of Boulder whose names are fun (Hop, Skip, Dash, etc.), there's a system that runs the whole Denver metro area, and its routes include Boulder.  The are buses that run specifically to take people to and from Broncos and Rockies games, etc.  The system rocks. 

It is NOT cheap to park on campus, so I refused to buy an on-campus parking permit.  Luckily, I live near the edge of campus, and it's easy for me to park off-campus and then walk the half mile or so to my apartment in the dorm.  But sometimes it's difficult to find a parking spot in the area where I want to park because it is so close to campus, and lots of people want to park there. When I find a spot, I don't want to move my car just for the fun of it. 

If I haven't driven my car in a week or so, I go to wherever it's parked to check to see if it's still there.  And if it is still there, I have to make sure that's it's okay: no parking tickets, no windows smashed in, etc.  It's actually a pretty safe neighborhood (if you exclude the fact that JonBenet Ramsey was killed less than a mile from where I live, and about 4 blocks from where I park). 

Back to the subject at hand...
Rather than drive my car everywhere, which requires giving up my parking spot, I take public transportation.  Before last week, I'd never taken public transportation alone in my life.  A few weeks ago, I spent a good 2 hours researching the bus system and its routes, and found the best way to the post office to open a mailbox.  It took some nerve, but I finally convinced myself to actually do it.  It wasn't (that) hard, and everything turned out well.

I've taken public transportation twice since then, and have had no problems.  I'm learning little things each time.  If you want to stop, you have to pull the string so the bus driver knows to stop at your stop.  Have your pass ready when you get to the door.  Little things like that.

What I'm curious to know is if there is bus/public transportation etiquette that may not be so obvious.  If so, please tell me now so that I don't feel like an ignorant bus rider!!!

And, in case you're wondering, my post office box's number is 6110, and the zip code is 80306.  For you slower ones, that means that I welcome postcards, cards, gifts, etc., etc., etc. at the address listed below.  But you should probably tell me if you send me something, because I definitely don't plan on riding the bus for an hour every day just to get my mail (even though it's not that bad).

Raissa Johnson
PO Box 6110
Boulder, CO  80306-6110