What costs between $500,000 and a million dollars? A house in University Park? Perhaps an aptly adorned condo in Museum Tower?

The answer is even better: the amount SMU Parking Services collects from citations alone in a year. Feel free to vomit, because I did.

Blasting down Central or Hillcrest it’s easy to forget that, no matter how fast you go or which obnoxiously-slow-moving law garage pedestrians you run over, there won’t be a parking spot waiting at the other end of the rainbow.

You won’t be on time to class, you won’t be excused if you walk in late or miss altogether, and you won’t be forgiven by the parking fairies that float around campus spitting out those yellow envelopes from hell.

Alas, I’m sure some folks out there are thinking, “Just get there earlier,” as they read this article from their vehicles, parked in their guaranteed parking spots.

The answer is this: when the parking lots and garages are equally filled between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., there is no “earlier” and there are no spots. This is absurd; you, like everyone else who doesn’t live within three inches of the classroom door, have a parking sticker!

But no, we are told by the wizards behind the curtain (or off campus in Expressway Tower), that doesn’t matter at all.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you get something in return for a payment? Don’t you pay the annual parking fee for…well, parking?

One would assume as much. But nothing says business as usual like a million dollars, so why change anything?

So rest assured, my fellow students, because one million dollars from our collective coffers is going to…well…something, I guess.

Cavender is a senior majoring in political science.