The Woes of the Lower Lot Parking
It’s cold, windy, and the fog lingers over the lawn as it’s not quite ready to rise. Every morning is grey, bleak, and miserable. Protect yourself as you might, there is no way to guard against the elements specific to the walk up from the junior lot.
Go ahead, don your puffy winter coat and wear a pair of sweatpants over your skirt. Try five, ten, twenty scarves! It will do you no good. The wind will find a way to pierce through your thickest winter garments. Any exposed appendages, be it fingers, ears, or toes, are as good as gone. You’ll be lucky to thaw out before the first period bell rings. This is the plight of students stuck in the lower lot.
The path to the school building is a minefield. One must strategize as to avoid goose poop, black ice, puddles, and mud, all while trying not to ruin their shoes. The junior lot, as it’s commonly referred to, is a regional anomaly. Colder, windier, and more slippery than any other part of southern Rhode Island, it’s a “privilege” allotted to juniors, and some unfortunate seniors.
One perk of being in the junior lot is that when it snows, you have no idea where your parking spot is. One would think as residents of Rhode Island, being no strangers to snow, we would know enough to plow the parking lots. They at least make an effort in the upper lot! When it snows, one must guess or just make up a parking spot.
Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful to have a place to park my car, I really am. But I have some suggestions, maybe a shuttle to bring students to the building safely or super grip boots that prevent slipping on ice. We could attach ice melt bags to freshmen and send them running down the path. What about laying out a new parking lot with radiant heat coils so the ice melts in time for students to park? I’m just throwing a few ideas out.
In the meantime, I suggest students carry mini shovels in their car, along with kitty litter so they can get out after the snow has piled up through the school day. It’s a dangerous world down in the lower lot, guard yourselves.
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