Zac Morales

The quiet before the storm.

The bell has just rung, now it’s time to run. You walk quickly out the classroom door, dodging the slow walkers, trying to get to your car before the clock strikes 2:46. If you’re late, expect an actual 30-minute delay, only finally getting out of the parking lot at 3:20 p.m. When burning alive in your furnace of a car, this feels like ages.

The parking lot was designed so that the drop off loop and the parking lot spill out to same exit to County Road 7. This is a very unfortunate design because this means all students, driving themselves or being dropped off/picked up, have to merge into this same road. For a mix of new drivers and impatient people, this is a literal nightmare.

When 15 kindergarteners were asked to design a high school parking lot, their crayon scribbles similarly had a circle-ish shape for what they say is the parking lot. Then, the long, intricate designs of long twisty lines are similar to those of Mead High’s drop of loop with crossing lanes and long twisty pathways, unclear of where you should go.

Although the design is idiotic, if parents would stop disregarding countless emails from admin, the world would be a better place. My life would all be glitter and rainbows if I didn’t have to fear walking through the parking lot at 7:40 a.m.

On the daily, kids unwillingly participate in a multistage aerobic obstacle course, dodging cars, like they’re moving lasers, just trying to get to the door.

Don’t you worry, these obstacles do have fingers and have no problem flipping you the bird for just trying to make it to class. Or if they’re really angsty, it might just get down to crunch time.

The parking lot was made to tightly pack as many parking spaces as humanly possible. As a result, there is very little space for unnecessary cars.

Stephanie Waster (‘27), a common parking lot user, shared, “This week went actually well. My car was only physically hit one time! The damages were estimated at about $400, but on the bright side, my totally demolished taillight wasn’t working perfectly fine before getting hit.” Waster says you get good at dodging cars, continuing, “You just start assessing your surroundings all the time, keeping the mindset that no matter where you are, even if on a sidewalk or crosswalk, you are the problem. You are in the way.”

Amelia Yerts (‘28) feels very strongly towards the parking lot: “I HATE this [fluffing] stupid parking lot. It’s so [fluffing] stupid, can these [fluffing] parents get the [heck] out?!” Yerts also explains how she’d rather skip all of the first period than brave the parking lot.

With a combination of parents and moronic design, the congested rows of the parking lot have you boxed in at all sides. Leaving you with prayers and tears, you’re only hope is the kindness of someone’s heart or just a glitch in the matrix to give you an opening to save yourself.

As you sit there watching the parents and children stuck in the reservoir of unmoving cars, the drop of lane is flowing like a drinking fountain. The merging lane acting as a dam blocking up all the cars in the parking lot. Which is such a dam design.

Once you’re out of the parking lot, the horror still not over, but at least at that point you’re somewhat moving.

With no change in sight, Mead students should expect to suffer to the end of eternity for an unlikely parking lot redesign.