Outside the mosque

There's probably another name for it. I'm pretty sure that if I actually called it as a "mosque" to a Muslim acquaintance, they would look at me in askance. However, since my freshman year, when I unsuspectingly walked by during "prayers" at the Muslim campus building (and was stared at by a large group of heavily bearded and robed, somber men who doubtless disaproved of my skimpy jeans and sweatshirt enemble), I've referred to it as "the mosque." Some of my friends don't even believe it exists. But it does.

And today I parked outside it. (Parallel parked- quite adroitly, I might add.)

After slipping neatly into my selected, all-day, no parking-permit-required, kill-your-mother-to-get-it spot, I did the awkward half-crawl into my back seat to transfer everything from my black bag to my brown bag and pick up my three different kinds of lip gloss from where they had fallen during my too impetuous turn into McDonalds (where they sell awful coffee.). If you are female you will understand this move, and you will also understand my endless search for a bag that you can carry with either black or brown shoes. However, that's for another post.

Mid-crouch and with bags but half transferred, I hear a, "Hmhm." You've heard it. It's the polite throat-clearing hum which says, "I'm-standing-right-behind-you-and-you-need-to-turn-around-and-talk-to-me." (Amazing what can be conveyed in a "hm" and throat clearing...)

In obedience to the "hmhm" I straightened up, bashed my head on my car door, and turned around. And almost wet my pants. There was a man standing right next to me. A big man. With a big, thick, frizzy beard, dark beatling eyebrows, and a Carhartt.

If he hadn't been wearing the Carhartt I might have run for the hills, he was so scary and intense. But the Carhartt "Hoosier-ized" him, and I've seen my fair share of intense men in Carhartts (once again, another post for another day...).

"Excuse me... Excuse me." (I must have looked very shook-up. He repeated it twice.) "Your car? You... you cannot park here." And he crossed my patience threshold. With that statement it probably wouldn't have mattered if he had been Sadam Hussein, or the President of the United States- I probably would have gone postal on him. You do NOT, I repeat do NOT tell me that I cannot park somewhere after countless, frustrated minutes of circling Purdue's campus, "Christian cursing" under my breath at the famous astronaut who got a building- another building- for the engineers (who clearly already own half the campus) and neglected the incredible (and unarguable) need for a parking garage. He must have seen the wrath of Courtney rising in my eyes, because he quickly added-

"You park here. You can park. Yes. You park. I just warn you- it's prayer time. Prayer time soon, and you not be able to get out. 1:20-3:30. We pray. The street will be full. And you be packed in. Not able to move."

My jaw unclenched. My brow unfurled. The corners of my mouth even raised to a polite smile as I thanked him for letting me know.

So... there is TOO a mosque at Purdue.

And if you park in front of it before 1:20, don't expect to leave before 3:30.

Just so you know...