cockblocking

this is a true story. it happened yesterday. names have not been changed because no one is innocent.

it's monday nite. my farsi class starts wednesday and i got one textbook, the required one, but haven't gotten the all-important parking pass nor have picked up the persian learner's dictionary.

better get moving, says i. i call jay and say, "trade you lending me fifty bucks till the munny comes in for some gallivanting in la jolla. can you?" he can, we plan, i'll pick him up chez lui on tuesday morning.

tuesday. we arrive on campus - such a lovely, lovely campus it is, well worth the lending just to see, lush and green and just gorgeous - and it's frelling kicked in the mivvox. reminds me of a hive pushed over. people everywhere, all running like crazy.

i can't figure it out and neither can jay. i can't park in the metered visitor spots that were so damn wide open neither because there are policemen blocking the road.

we head up another block, befuddled, and hit one of the huge parking buildings. ooh - there's the parking office! we duck inside, vroom vroom, and there are thousands of spaces. all of these spaces - seven frelling floors of them - are full.

by some kind god's hand, a woman pulls out & i run over several other vehicles to carpe the space-em. it's even a metered space! we can legally park here!

we stick in ducats & run for the exit.

in the parking office, which ominously resembles the dmv on a smaller scale, there isn't barely another human being. thousands and thousands of human beings are running around like the frelling apocalypse is happening and no one else needs to get their parking pass?

i'm concerned. i admit it. it's not believable. but we do our thing.

it's taken forever to find a spot, but now we have it and the pass. time to hit the bookstore eh? jay's reward - he loves books and the university's bookstore is about the size of my home state.

i am intercepted trying to walk to the front door of the building. "ma'am, please remain on the other sidewalk," says a stressed-looking but unusually well-groomed officer.

"oh... um, okay," i stutter. i've been looking at other things - a college campus in california tends to be full of youthful women in skimpy clothing.

now that i'm looking, there also seems to be an unusual number of armed persons. as in, why would there be any, but from here i can see twenty.

we enter the building by the other sidewalk. there is a sign:

access to the bookstore is through the library overpass.

we look at each other, shrug, and move up the stairs towards said overpass. normally we'd just walk through the blocked main entrance, or use this entrance and go through the food court onto the enclosed plaza where the theatre & al. are.

we climb the stairs and... men with guns. and unhappy expressions. "you need to go back the way you came. there is no further access."

jesus, they look like matrix agents. what the hell? so we go downstairs and into the food court. everyone is looking out the glass windows and the (sealed closed) glass doors.

it is then that i see that about fifteen feet from my head, john kerry is standing on a stage.

i could hit him with a rock. two rocks: one to break the window and the other to hit him with. i coulda done it overhand. and he's sermonising directly in front of the bookstore entrance.

we've been cockblocked by a presidential nominee!