The Parking Gods Reward Hubris

On Tuesday, I was exhausted. I had worked hard all day and only came back to my apartment for dinner. I still had a major project to finish and needed to go back to my office. Normally, I'm only too happy to walk to school since it only takes 15 minutes, provides the only exercise I get these days, and saves gas. This day, however, I felt I owed myself a ride.
Parking regulations in the lot next to the math building are only enforced until 6, so I could safely park in any spot. Even after hours, people seem to avoid parking in the spot reserved for the dean. Feeling a bit cheeky, I took it myself.
I worked long and hard on my project. As I left, security guards were prowling the building and there was a danger of tripping an alarm if I exited through the wrong door. I was pretty tired, so to keep from sulking over the sleep I had lost, I picked some cheerful music from my iPod for the walk home.
Walk home.
The significance of these last words did not occur to me until Saturday afternoon when I found that my truck was not parked in its usual spot by my apartment. A black horror overcame me as I realized that—in my exhaustion—I had forgotten that I needed to extract my vehicle from "Reserved for the Dean: $50 fine, towing enforced."
I trudged to the campus police office listening to the march from "1941"—normally a sure-fire way to cheer me up. Passing the math building, I noticed something odd: my truck was still parked in the dean's spot.
"Great," I thought, "so, instead of a single $50 ticket and a towing/storage fee I get three $50 tickets?"
I checked the wipers. No tickets.
"Then it's the boot! Oh, no! Anything but the boot!"
I looked down. No boot.
"So... do I just drive away?"
I checked the rest of my truck. Nothing out of the ordinary. I looked around for cops (sometimes they toy you by letting you think you've gotten away with it). There was no indication that my truck and I had violated anything.
Safely on the road home, I said a prayer of thanks. Specifically, I promised three of my first four children to any god that could prove his involvement, but suffice to say I was relieved.
Now, I happen to know several people who have been ticketed (or worse) for parking in that lot without a permit. They parked in the ordinary stalls (aware of the risks) and came back in a couple of hours only to discover that justice had been delivered in their absence. I parked in the prime location (flippantly enough that I forgot) and wandered back half a week later without consequences. Since every other factor is stacked in favor of my receiving a harsher punishment, I can only conclude that whatever forces guard wayward parkers are fond of my insolence, irony in general, or both.

Presidential Consumer Review

I wondered today, what if we reviewed our elected officials like we review books, personal electronics and pet shampoos? Being the creative sort, I made up an answer:

Definition of Combinatorics

Those who study combinatorics are working to discover how many different ways they can suffer. The binomial coefficient that dominates their work is


.
This expression does not mean that I am over the pain. It is pronounced "I choose Pain."

Gain and Loss

Everyone seems to believe that one man's gain must be another man's loss. The only exception they allow is government action in which case the poor gain and somehow, nobody loses. Well, maybe some rich pigs get taxed, but we hate them anyway.
Reality is precisely the opposite: unless coercive forces like the government get involved, people only interact by choice. Every exchange has expected gains for all parties. You can tell that they expected to gain because if someone expected to lose, they wouldn't have participated.

Subconscious

My brain comes up with some pretty weird stuff while I sleep, but this one is pretty interesting even a few hours after waking up. I dreamed that I was vandalizing a Port-a-John by writing on the wall:

Parapsychologists and parasitologists: one makes your ghosts flee, the other makes your fleas ghosts.

You've Been Mugged

If you have ever been to a large city, you have probably been mugged, and you might not have even realized it. I'm not saying you failed to notice a guy in a ski-mask jumping out of an alley and pointing a knife in your face; it was probably more subtle than that. It could be as simple as someone politely asking for money. To see why I call this a mugging, let's identify the essential features of a traditional mugger and see how a panhandler compares.
In a mugging, there are usually two parties: the mugger and the victim. The victim has something the mugger wants (say money). The mugger cannot or chooses not to try to exchange anything for the money. Instead, the mugger forces the victim into a dangerous position (such as the business end of a gun) and offers to release the victim—in exchange for the money. The mugger has produced nothing of value. He created a problem and expects to be paid to take it away.
Notice how the paragraph above becomes a typical begging situation when the gun is replaced with social pressure. Beggars create awkward an social situation and expect to be paid for taking it away.
A defender of begging would probably point out that awkwardness is not deadly whereas muggers' weapons are. This is certainly true, but they operate on the same principal, and while I prefer to have a nasty feeling in my gut rather than a knife, you can successfully threaten me with either.
Furthermore, while beggars are less physically dangerous, I suggest that there's a special sort of repugnance in using someone's own pity as a weapon to against them. Imagine if muggers did the same: they would ask to borrow your pocket knife and then held it to your throat saying, "Give me your wallet!"
I am not suggesting that we arrest people for begging. Asking for money (like most forms of speech) is a right that should be protected. Denying people the right to solicite "donations" could easily lead to outlawing certain types of fundraising for non-profit organizations (I think we can agree to avoid that). However, if individuals recognize begging as a sort of coercion, then we will feel less of the social pressure beggars attempt to apply. We will be disarming our muggers.

Friendly Airport Service

There are wonderful people in the world; we just meet them so seldom.

I once flew into the Salt Lake airport with some LDS missionaries returning from their two years of service. An airport employee (janitor I think) approached one of them and asked, "You're just getting back from a mission?"
"Yes."
"Your family hasn't seen you in two years?"
"Yes."
"Are they waiting for you in the lobby?"
"They said they would be."
"Would you like to surprise them?"
The employee then proceeded to show the missionary a hallway through a door marked "Employees Only."
Later, in the lobby, I quickly identified the young man's relations: a huge group with signs reading "Welcome Home Elder ______!" (they matched his name-tag). They were anxiously watching the passengers arriving from his flight.
I stuck around to see what happened. When the family had waited long enough to seem a bit confused by his absence, I saw the missionary emerge from another "Employees Only" door—behind his family. He was able to get right in among them before shouting, "How's everybody doing?"

Let's hear it for offering quirky services to strangers.