Ah, an Indian summer — a time of changing leaves, football games and campus adversity.

Well, for just one moment, forget Veishea. Forget tuition increases. Even try to forget the evils of interleague play and realignment.

Instead, focus your attention on the true nemesis of our idealistic student body. You know who I’m talking about. The devious and despicable defenders of injustice and cruelty on the Iowa State campus.

DPS.

The Department of Public Safety has come to symbolize for me all that is bad in this world. They’re mean, all-powerful and easily irritated. They make it near-impossible for anyone to park anywhere even remotely near campus, and then they fine you within an inch of your life if you cross the line. Here’s a tragic situation the average ISU student may someday experience.

Say you innocently park your car in a seemingly appropriate lot. You expect nothing to happen to it while you’re off filling your mind with knowledge, right? Even if you had accidentally parked in some crazy restricted parking zone, you would probably just expect a five dollar ticket, especially if there were no signs posted in the near vicinity informing you of impending doom.

Well, you’d be wrong. Let me tell you what would actually happen to you on the ISU campus:

YOU’D GET TOWED!!!

That’s right. You’d walk out to your car, expecting to hop in and drive off, and it would no longer be there. You may think I’m making this up. But, I’m not. It’s happened to many an Iowa Stater. More importantly, it happened to me.

Tuesday afternoon, I walked out to where I had parked the previous evening, and my car was not to be found. There were no signs informing me of any parking mistake I had made, and there were certainly no signs warning me of towing at my own expense.

See, I’ve tried hard this semester to mend my ways. I hadn’t received even one single ticket since school started. (If you don’t think this is an incredible feat, just ask my friends.) I had even parked in this lot before, so I thought it was okay. But no. They took it anyway. Without notice, my beloved Ford Tempo was gone.

DPS didn’t even tell me my car had been removed. The next morning, I had to call all over the department to find someone who knew what might have happened. That afternoon, they did finally call, 24 hours after the incident, telling me to go pick up my car. Well gee, thanks guys.

Then, to add insult to injury, when I finally got to the service station, I was not only forced to pay the towing fee, I was also presented with a Department of Public Safety parking ticket.

I think this may be the last straw. Unfortunately, this experience is not an isolated event. This kind of thing happens to everyone who attempts to own and operate a car on campus. People I know are always getting tickets for running in buildings, dropping off books and picking people up.

However, the worst thing about our DPS problems, besides the unconstitutionally high fines, is that we have no line of defense. They are the last word in collecting my hard-earned money.

Yeah, there’s the whole system of appeals, but that doesn’t work, either. I appealed a ticket last fall when I had left my keys in my sociology TA’s classroom. I couldn’t move my car from the teacher parking lot before the next morning. I immediately appealed the ticket I received, because hey, there was nothing I could do without my keys.

Not only did I not receive a letter telling me my appeal was granted, I didn’t receive any notice at all, like I was told I would. Not even a “we didn’t buy your story, so there” letter. Just another $15 added to my U-Bill in the middle of June.

So, my cry is this: DPS must be stopped. Don’t think that just because they haven’t gotten to you yet that you’re safe. They’ll find you. They’ll hunt you down and make you pay.

Just wait until you can’t find your car.

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Sara Ziegler is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.