Everyone gets the e-mails. Move your car from the Meadows Museum Parking Garage, the Moody Garage, the lot behind McElvaney, the Boaz lot on Binkley and the Dedman II and III lots by 10 p.m. on Friday- or else!

This is quite a bit of parking space, and you would think it would be enough for “game day” parking for all the alumni and students not living on campus. Seriously, how many times has the stadium been filled since it opened? Four?

But these are not the only areas the people hired tell you where to go when you turn onto Bishop Boulevard from Mockingbird. Once the Meadows Museum Garage fills up, they direct you into the parking lot for Hawk, Martin and Moore halls and the Highland Park United Methodist Church. And that garage fills up pretty fast, because it’s the first and only other place they’ll direct you to, unless you have a spot on the Boulevard. They don’t tell you about the other parking lots and garages. No, that would make too much sense and be too convenient for SMU students. Instead, they direct you into the parking lot by my residence hall. If I decide to go anywhere on game day I have to either not come back until the game is well over and the alumni drive their Jags, BMWs and SUVs out of my parking lot, or I have to park in the Airline Garage, where the only spaces open are those labeled “faculty/staff,” and pray I don’t get a parking ticket, because I don’t have $25 to spend on one, especially if it’s because SMU lets alumni park where I’m allowed to.

Never do those e-mails say, “Please move your cars from the parking lot by Hawk, Martin, Moore and the HPUMC,” but for some reason this area is designated for game day parking anyway.

Here’s my suggestion: Tell alumni to park in the areas designated by the e-mail sent out by Gary Shultz every time there’s a home game, or else to park off campus. Those guys who are standing there directing people into the parking lot by my residence hall should instead be refusing to allow them to park there. Perhaps they should be handing out game day parking passes to be either hung from the rearview mirror or just set on the dash of your car, and if you decide to park somewhere else on campus besides the areas designated for game day parking, you should get a ticket. The SMU Police Department loves handing out parking tickets for non-stickered cars (like those belonging to visitors) every single day of the year, except for game days. I’ll be writing about the lack of visitor parking later, because game day parking is just one way that this school inconveniences its students. The lack of visitor parking is another, and there isn’t enough space in one article to talk about both.

Here’s the most annoying thing about not being able to park anywhere near my dorm and having to walk back from the Airline Garage last Saturday: the gray haired man in his bright red SMU football T-shirt who parked his shiny, olive-green Jaguar across from the HPUMC and then stood in the only other open parking space in the entire lot while waiting for whoever was coming to meet him so they could park there. Yes, my friend and I were the ones giving you dirty looks as we drove by you twice. Yes, we considered getting out and making you move and stop being such a %^&$@#*. Yes, we considered going back and slashing the tires on your Jag. Next time, try this thing called “ride-sharing.”

Even if whoever is in charge of the parking on game day doesn’t like that suggestion, here’s another: Instead of shooing people into the Hawk, Martin and Moore lot/HPUMC lot after the Meadows Garage is full, tell them to try some of the other lovely game day parking establishments on campus, like the Moody Garage, the lot behind McElvaney, the Boaz lot on Binkley and the Dedman II and III lots. I realize this isn’t convenient for the students who live in McElvaney, Cockrell-McIntosh, Morris-McGinnis and Boaz, but at least they’re given notice that the alumni will be taking over their parking lots. The students are the ones who should come first in the eyes of the school, not the alumni.

Katy Rowe is a senior English and anthropology major. She may be contacted at [email protected].