Circumventing the system is the name of the game, getting to park close to campus is the treasure at the end of the rainbow8212;but only if you don’t get caught red-handed.
University of Utah officials are searching for students who belong to an underground ring of counterfeiters that provides parking passes for cash.
“Screw the university. They rip us off on these parking passes, so we decided to do a little screwing of our own,” said a student The Comical will refer to only by Ralph.
Ralph is the ringleader of the black market parking passes, and a student studying music.
He says he has connections inside of Parking and Transportation Services who stole a slew of A passes.
At first, Ralph thought about handing them out to his friends, then his car broke down, and his former girlfriend stole his CD player, so he was a little short on cash.
“A student has to do what a student has to do. I heard that in a movie once,” Ralph said.
Only full-time employees are eligible to buy an A Pass, which allows the recipient to park in the closest parking lots to buildings. It costs $180.
Ralph can provide a pass to a student for a cool $220.
Alma Allred, director of parking services, said his office will stop at nothing to find the “criminals.”
“Oh, come on. Why can’t they just play by the rules? I don’t bug them. Why do they have to steal our passes and make me look stupid?” Allred said.
Ralph said his underground ring was not attempting to make Allred look stupid; rather, the ring’s goal is to make money and park closer.
“It is a pretty simple concept,” he said.
Allred is frustrated by a lack of leads, though he has been seen hanging around the music department as of late, which has many of its students a little worried.
“There is some creepy old guy who stands at the back of the concert hall every time we sing. I can’t hit any of the high notes when he comes in,” said Leah Bryner, a member of the U’s a cappella choir.
Ralph isn’t worried about Allred; in fact, he has already assumed that parking services will never find him, and for his next act of defiance, he will start an underground food service.
“I will sneak quality food right past the nose of those Chartwells guys, and in the process make a pretty penny,” he said.
Disclaimer: The Comical is pure satire and appears at the beginning of every week on The Chronicle’s Web site. Please take the stories as jokes and don’t call your lawyer. Thanks.