A few months ago…

I decided to go to my Linguistics Syntax class a bit early after my free hour.
It seemed like an innocent and harmless decision to go early and get some work done there before the teacher arrived.

I went through my usual routine: got on my bike that was locked onto the pole in front of the music building (as many did, due to the fact that they had forgotten to set up the bike rack after the renovation), biked up to Rathaus, where I turned left onto the narrow backstreets behind King Hall. (This was, indeed, the shortest route I had devised in order to get to and from classes as fast as possible and more importantly, on time. ) Then I took the road lining the outdoor amphitheater for about 5 feet, then turned left to find myself on the ramp at the bottom of the hill from the Public Safety Office. I crossed Kissena, and…

Something was different.
There were three ladies sitting in front of the pole onto which I lock my bike onto at Kissena Hall, something I had never seen before. (For those who don’t know where the building is, it is right across the street from Gino’s, on the same side of Kissena.)
Nevertheless, it was a nice day, so it all seemed to make sense. I pulled through my usual routine of biking up to the entrance, then parked my bike right onto the pole on the other side. As I was doing so, the ladies looked at me judgingly. They didn’t say a word to me, so I figured that they were simply … angry and judgmental ladies. As I parked and looked back, all three of them were staring right back at me, and I gave them a … “WHAT?!” look. They kept looking at me, and for what seemed like 2 minutes, we had a staring battle. (I didn’t know I could be feisty like that! Surprise!) OH, the power of the eyes.

They didn’t seem like they were going to say anything, so I finally gave up and went into the building, as if nothing happened. As I sat down and started talking to my friends in the class, I felt one of “the ladies” came scurrying towards the classroom. I could hear her aura coming down the hallway. She was engaged in an aggressive conversation with the security officer that she had brought with her. Though I sort of had an idea, I wasn’t really sure why exactly she was being so aggressive about the situation. After all, I had gone through the same routine THREE times a week for every class week, for TWO whole semesters! I couldn’t have possibly been breaking a rule now, right?!

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH… they came like a storm. As if I had pick-pocketed something on the subway, she screamed, “It’s HER! The girl in the _______ (whatever I was wearing that day)!!” I waited for them to speak (or more like… yell) at me. The Security Officer was enraged as a beet, as if he had been waiting for this moment all year long.

“MISS, ARE YOU THE OWNER OF THAT PINK BIKE?”
“Me? Yes. That is my bike.”
“YOU CAN’T PARK THERE.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that. I’ve been doing so for the last… ”
(The lady butts in.) “YOU CAN’T DO THAT.”
“Why?”
The Security Guard goes: “IT’S AGAINST THE CAMPUS LAWS.”
“O…k….?”
“PLEASE MOVE YOUR BIKE.”
And this seemed to bicker on forever until I gave in to the fact that I was not going to get any logical explanation of why exactly I could not park my bike there. I had done so at least 50 times before, why now?

Like a good student, I did exactly what I was “supposed to do.” As the guard told me, I walked over to public safety, parked my bike there, and walked back to Kissena. (Side note: This guard had told me the week before that I couldn’t use the bathroom downstairs because it was too small. I went upstairs, only to find that the upstairs bathroom was even smaller.) Grant it, I have 10 minutes to go from Kissena Hall to the Music building, and there was no way I was going to be able to get there on time now, if I had to walk to public safety, then bike over, then walk to my class, and set up my computer to take notes on by the time the class started. I felt like a criminal for wanting to get to class on time. So, I was late to class.

Ever since, I had brought my bike inside the classroom. (The lady had mentioned that day that her son brings her bike inside the building, so I assumed that that was abiding the rules. All it took was me bringing the bike inside, and parking it in the corner. Nobody seemed to care or say anything about it. I guess I should have asked if that was ok or not, but I had no patience to talk to someone who spoke so aggressively to me about such a small incident. Two months went by, and nothing was said. I thought the problem was relieved. Until last Friday, when I sat down at my desk after parking my bike, the same exact thing happened. A different lady came up to the room, pointed me out like a criminal to the security officer, then told me to move my bike because there were no bikes allowed in the building. OK. I walked over to Public Safety and came back to class. I was frustrated, once again, at the lack of explanation.

After class, I went to the music building and spoke to a security guard there about it. He told me that there is a rule because once one person bring in their bike, then more people in the class will do so, and then you’ll have a classroom full of bikes.

OHHHHH. OK.
All I needed was an explanation of WHY I couldn’t do these things and WHY there were certain rules.

Why is it that people can’t talk calmly and sensibly? Was it really that big of a crime to want to get to class on time? Context speaks louder than words. I pay too much for the school to yell at me as if I were a criminal for trying to be the best student I can. Please, just tell me calmly with a sensible explanation, and I am very likely to understand it.