It was a beautiful day April 2.

In light of the nice weather, I decided to drive to school with the top down on my blue, ’98 Jeep Wrangler.

Before going into class, I properly displayed my parking pass on my rearview mirror and proceeded into geology in a pretty good mood.

However, much to my surprise, after class I came out with a friend of mine and found a parking citation on the windshield reading “no parking permit.”

A quick glace revealed my pass sitting face up on the dashboard in clear sight. To my surprise, it had blown off the mirror.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I thought.

Something like this happened once last semester, after showing I had my pass with me that day, I received my “courtesy” void for the year.

This time I immediately went to the Department of Public Safety to show that I, indeed, had my parking pass with me that day.

The man told me there was nothing he could do about it because the tickets go directly into the system.

He handed me an appeals form and said I would have to try to resolve the problem through the Office of Bursar Operations.

I asked if he thought an appeal would work.

I tried to explain that I wanted someone to have it on record that I had my pass that day.

He could not accommodate my request.

So, I filed my appeal, and a couple of days later received a letter saying that “no parking permit” could not be appealed due to the “flexibility of the transferable permit.”

This would be fine except for the fact that I had a parking permit.

Perhaps the transferable permit is a bit too flexible, seeing as it can easily be blown off by a stiff breeze.

Maybe, instead of wasting time trying to come up with new ways to write more tickets and hassle more students, someone could develop a more reliable parking pass.

This is actually the third problem I’ve had with parking here.

My time, which is limited and valuable to me has been wasted and I am rather fed up.

Trying to find a parking spot wastes enough time as it is.

I’ve paid for a parking pass each of the four years I’ve been here, and I’m beginning to ask myself why I even bothered.

I have friends who don’t buy parking passes and have received fewer tickets than I have.

Overall, NKU’s entire parking philosophy appalls me.

The form letter I received made references to my first ticket being “forgiven” as a “courtesy” to me.

Well, that’s for absolution, but I don’t feel as if I’ve sinned, nor do I consider it a courtesy that anyone can remove a parking ticket from my record when I had a pass with me that day.