BERKELEY, Calif. – Traffic has ground to a standstill across the city of Berkeley and the greater Alameda County following a stupendously horrific parking job by an unidentified Nobel laureate.
“It’s amazing. I mean, it’s actually a stroke of genius, how bad it is,” explained graduate student Natasha Vitoba, who first noticed the Toyota Camry that was haphazardly placed within (and, somehow, simultaneously without) the lot reserved for Nobel laureates. “On the surface, it appears to defy all modern understandings of physics. How can one vehicle simultaneously be parked outside Evans Hall and also at the center of every major intersection in Alameda county? It seems impossible. However, closer inspection reveals that this indubitably atrocious parking job is merely the result of a clever exploitation of quantum tunneling. Indeed, the work is quite distinctive, with all the tell-tale trademarks of the professor I believe is responsible -”
At this point, Vitoba inexplicably vanished from the scene, as if whisked into the ether by some unseen, unknowable, unstoppable force.
Local sources claim that the horrendous parking job has severely impacted their finances.
“I was supposed to deliver this massive shipment of cocaine to Theta Chi, but thanks to Dr. ‘I-Can’t-Park-Between-Lines,’ that’s $30,000 I’m not getting,” lamented PoliSci major and drug dealer Frances Flout-Troutt III. “I just wish these Nobel laureates would be more considerate. Like, I get that you cured cancer or invented the atom bomb or whatever, but that doesn’t give you the right to ruin things for the rest of us who are just trying to make an honest living selling drugs. It’s fucked up, honestly. Get over yourself.”
According to campus administration, this isn’t the first time a Nobel laureate’s poor parking has had a widespread impact on the campus community.
“You think we give the [strange, unintelligible name we assume refers to ‘Nobel laureates’] their own parking spots because ‘they asked for them?’” remarked Vice Chancellor Marc Fisher before chuckling, then chortling, then erupting in a bout of wheezy, unsettling, Joker-esque laughter. “Oh, you sweet, sweet summer child. You know nothing of the [strange, unintelligible name we assume refers to ‘Nobel laureates’], of their power. Our Nobel-reserved parking lots can only just contain it. Do you recall the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989? The Little Ice Age? The Big Bang? No, no, of course you don’t. You have never seen truly terrible parking.”
At press time, Professor Reinhard Genzel was seen apparating from Evans Hall to the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics after complaining that he had “forgot his car keys at home.”