Parker Egypt Can't Lose

Back in college, I had a reputation of being a creative parker. For three of the four years I was in Williamsburg, my mode of transportation was the old Volvo tank that sat about twenty. With or without jukebox money.

When the car was in motion and I (read: not Mattias) was behind the wheel, everything was cool. The only expense being incurred was the cost of the fuel the Volvo burned, and back in the good ole’ days, I think we paid $1.30 a gallon. But when the car was not in motion, that’s when it could get expensive.

You see, it’s not that William and Mary was at a loss for open space where a stationary vehicle could call its home. It was just that most of that open space was either 1) freshly cut, well-manicured fields of grass that were used less for parking and more for say, soccer; and 2) nowhere near anything of real importance of interest. Yes, I could have parked and walked whenever I needed my car at William and Mary Hall (now Kaplan Arena at WM Hall.) But, as you may remember, my memories of the Hall aren’t exactly the sunniest.

Very often, I would press my luck and parking in spots reserved for “Faculty and Staff of the College.” My justification was simple: while I may not have the official Fac/Staff parking decal, I do hold to paid positions at the College and therefore could be considered “Staff.” While it may not have gotten me out of paying that $15 at any time, it at least made me memorable with the good folks at Parking Services. All in all though, my excuse got me nowhere.

Maybe I just needed a better excuse.

One of the fringe benefits of being an ambassador to the United Nations, for any country, is the idea of “diplomatic immunity.” While residing within the borders of the nation in which you serve your state from afar, the rule goes so that you are free from the law unless your home nation waives that right. So what does this mean? Of course.

Diplomats suck at parking.

According to New York City, UN diplomats have racked up a bill of approximately 18 million dollars since the HQ has resided in the Big Apple. Can you imagine the size that glove compartment would have to be to hide the sheer paperwork involved? 18 MILLION DOLLARS. Dude! You’re in New York City! There’s way better ways to spend that kind of cash! That’s over 5,500 front row season tickets at Yankee Stadium! 900,000 trips to the top of the Empire State Building. And thanks to McDonalds’ latest marketing scheme, 108 million Chicken McNuggets!

Oh, that’s right. There not spending the money elsewhere. They’re not spending it at all.

The article lists Egypt and Kuwait as the biggest offenders, but not much past that. However, thanks to some crack research, we found a list chronicling the parking criminals up to 2002. (see page 20) After these two, the next 17 of 18 are from Africa (including some diplomat named Chad who is Number 3 all by himself!) So it appears Africa doesn’t care so much about parking safety. Mr. Eko, why have you forsaken us?

In other news, the bottom of the list – those who are law-abiding as ever? 21 nations that have managed to never park illegally. The group ranges from Canada to England to Azerbaijan to Oman. Now are we really to believe that these diplomats are so ethical that they would not think of parking illegally. No way!

Our guess? Somehow, they convinced NYC to park in Fac/Staff.