Bruce Larson vs. the Germans: Pt. 4

By Brian Englesma

He started walking towards his car.  Bruce hated walking to Stone Lot; he always got scuffs all over his shoes.  Today he got lucky though, and he got a spot in Constitution.  It was a real nice spot, the kind of spot people dream of.  Easy in, easy out.  Even better was the parking job he did on it.  His spot wasn’t exactly the roomiest, the jackoffs on either side decided to flirt with going over the white line.  It didn’t matter for Bruce though, he can park a car anywhere, or at least that’s what he told himself.  Back home in Jersey they still talk about the parallel job he did back in the summer of ‘79.

But if there was one thing Bruce loved even more than his parking ability, it was his Subaru, or as he called it, the Soob.  What a car!  He could always count on the Soob to get him from point A to point B. Who could forget Snowmaggedon 2010, when many people were snowed in; Bruce just put the Soob in drive and plowed through a 4 foot snow bank like a knife through butter. That car was like a dream, and behind the wheel Bruce was a regular Mario Andretti.

As he got close to the parking lot he saw his car.  It was as if the clouds had parted and a single beam of light was coming down on the Soob.  It was a sight for sore eyes. But what’s this?  Some type of note was under the windshield wiper, and some type of foreign object seemed to rest on the side of the old Soob.  Bruce was starting to get worried, what could this mean? Another one of Von Wolfenstein’s tricks?  His anxiety reached a fever pitch as he quickened his pace in haste to reach the Soob.

Once alongside his glorious thunder machine, Bruce grabbed what appeared to be a citation off the windshield.

“To Herr Larson,
Your car has been booted in accord with Gettysburg College regulation 33A subsection C:  ‘All cars parked on Gettysburg College property must be of German origin.’  In accord with this new regulation, your car has been booted.  To free your car please visit the Campus Safety and Security and pay a fine of no less than 2,000 dollars.  You have two weeks to file a written appeal with Campus Safety and Security; no verbal appeals will be accepted.

Sincerely, Kommandant Schneider.”

“You have got to be kidding me man,” Bruce screamed incredulously.  “This has gone too far, they are not going to get away with this.  No one messes with the Soob.”

Bruce snatched his beloved phone from his pocket and made another call, this time to Gettysburg Transportation.  He hoped that the Germans hadn’t gotten to them yet, and that somehow he could convince them to give him a ride to Washington National Airport.

“Transportation? Hey, it’s Bruce Larson.  Well of course you’ve heard of me, I’m very famous.  Yes, well I was wondering if you could somehow give me a ride down to D.C. today, I have a plane I desperately need to catch.  Why?  Well it’s a long story that has to do with some mischievous Germans.  Ahh so you’ve heard from them, too.  Yes, well, if you could help me out, man, it’d really be great.  Outside the chapel?  I’ll be right there.”

By now Bruce had been doing a fair amount of walking about campus, scrambling from one side to the other.  Luckily for him, he applied a rather liberal dose of the anti-perspirant this morning; he was good to go for hours.  If all went to plan he hoped to be back on campus in no time, but with some back up. But that was only if everything went to plan, and today, things going according to plan were few and far in between.