University of New Mexico Parking and Transportation Services recently announced that it will entirely give up on handing out parking citations, ushering in a new era of vehicular chaos unprecedented in modern society.
Patrick Patterson, director of PATS, said the organization has been officially “wrecked.”
“PATS has always been a proud and definitely fair organization. We kept the peace. We maintained order. Now, we’ve fallen apart due to internal pressures and public mockery. So, you win, you animals. We give up,” Patterson said. “You’re all on your own now. Let’s see if you like the world you wake up in when you wake up without a citation on your window.”
Following the announcement, authorities, including UNM President Garnett Stokes, declared that society as we know it has collapsed.
“As everyone knows, PATS giving out $50 parking tickets to 20-somethings who parked a little bit over the line was the last bastion of civilization holding back the barbarous nature of man. Now that they’ve given up, it’s anarchy,” Stokes said.
Since the announcement, roving automobile gangs have cropped up around campus as Honda Civic drivers with Hello Kitty window stickers take advantage of the new, post-PATS world order.
“I’m gonna park wherever I want now,” said Correy Vette, a former nursing major and current roaming parking lot bandit. “And call me ‘Road Dog.’ That’s what I’m going by now. Woof. It’s because I chase cars now, and I run so many stoplights you’d think I was red-and-green colorblind.”
“Hellcat” and “Mustang” are two other members of the deadly Honda Civic gang who are reveling in the vehicular chaos.
“I parked my car in two motorcycle spots the other day, and nothing bad happened. Some cyclist wanted to park there and I just ran him over,” Hellcat said. “Who’s gonna stop me?”
Mustang said that in the old days, he would see people with fun trinkets in their cars and just walk past. But now?
“I’m smashing and grabbing,” Mustang said. “So watch your back. Fuzzy dice on your mirror? Dashboard Jesus? Little rubber duckies? It’s all mine now.”
Cars have already been found overturned, burning, gutted and parked in loading zones.
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“Might get really crazy and pull into one of the spaces you’re only supposed to back into. Might even door-ding someone,” Road Dog said. “Oh, and stealing catalytic converters, obviously. Though, I could do that even before PATS disbanded. It wasn’t that hard.”
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued a statement on the situation yesterday.
“There’s nothing we can do. Let unpaid tickets rain from the sky like the ashes of an erupted volcano,” the statement reads. “Who even cares anymore?”
Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
