First Event
Walking to my car yesterday, I noticed some oddly parked cars, cars that decided to just stop in the middle of the road. Congregating around them are people that look far too trendy for Kentucky, people with Polartec clothing that is rather unnecessary at 60°F. The people have clipboards, making them Official Looking People. All of them are pointing their Polartec’d fingers to an empty field that, in my two and a half years of working here, I have never seen anyone other than the grounds crew step foot on. But darn it if they weren’t sketching and talking about moving things. And pointing. Lots of pointing.
Second Event
6:50am this morning, entering the campus I sail past one of those road construction LED signs on the way to my parking lot. My mind is cloudy by sleep, a long commute, and a distinct lack of caffeine. By the time I park my car (and notice the obvious lack of other cars), the message registers with me: “Parking lot closed 11/7-11/14” What the hell? That dude in the sketchy white van right there, the one who looks as if he’s being paid to stop cars like mine and/or sleep against the steering wheel? Yea, he didn’t flag me down. So I’ll just park here. He doesn’t have a clipboard. Or Polartec gear.
Later, upon hearing the news that a certain home improvement show starring a certain carpenter-turned-host with a rabid fan following will be filming at our campus, things start to click. I mention this to a coworker who interrupts me mid-story saying, “Really? Because the police called me saying John Faust needs to move his car.” I wave her off, thinking she’s trying to be funny again. Because she’s a stand-up comedian. Seriously. But no, she persists until I finally realize that indeed the police are tracking me down.
Then it all makes sense to my dull, under-caffeinated brain.
The events are all connected. The people I saw sporting clipboards and pointy fingers were show producers. The dude in the van likely was being paid to watch the lot in his unmarked white van (though his sleeping skills were much more refined). And indeed Extreme Home Makeover will be profiling Patrick Henry Hughes, the semi-famous blind student who is a member of the school’s band. As part of his “reveal,” they’ll be doing a makeover of the band’s practice field, which I know as “the field formerly just a patch of weeds grass.”
You’d think for all the crime shows that I zone-out to, I’d be more up on connecting the dots. Instead I had to do the walk of shame past all the police officers to retrieve my car which was all alone in the lot, now roped-off with yellow caution tape.
Patrick, I hope you’re thrilled. As for me, my lazyass now gets to spend the next week parking across town at the stadium and hoofing 1.03 miles to my office, pre-dawn. And I don’t own anything Polartec.
