Cambridge is not a liberal city. You may think it is, with its pro-choice, pro-environment leaders, its stringent recycling laws and its strong support for civil rights and equality among all segments of the population. The "Kremlin on the Charles" is one of the only cities in America with a "peace commission."

But it's not liberal.

No liberal city would tow cars because of street cleaning violations at eight in the morning.

I come from one of the most conservative counties in the nation. In Lancaster, Pa., where a large segment of the population considers electricity an evil vanity, there is certainly no conclave of liberal leaders. Nevertheless, our street cleaners don't come into view until at least after noon. And they have to roam the city after Amish horses and buggies.

Being irrationally terrified of all state officials--especially traffic cops and driver's license examiners--I wanted to avoid the whole towing fiasco. So on Wednesday, I woke up early to move my car because I knew it was street cleaning day. My car was parked behind the Quad (where they don't ticket you every five minutes, just every third day) on the Fourth-Wednesday-of-the-Month side; drawing on my proficiency in math, I had figured out that the fourth Wednesday had come.

I had even been slightly responsible and thought about moving the car early Tuesday before I headed to the Yard to shop classes. But that would have meant putting the car on the Fourth-Tuesday-of-the-Month side, and the car would have been towed for sure.

Of course, I could have moved my car Tuesday night. (And if my mother lived in Cambridge, I would have. And I would have carried my trash down to the basement too; and hung up my posters, which have been sitting on my floor since I got to school. And I might have bought a plant, just to liven up my room.

But I didn't When I got back to the Quad from a hectic day of turning in forms and seminar applications and fulfilling newspaper duties, it was after midnight. People don't walk alone down the dark streets behind the Quad that late at night. And people certainly can't convince other people to accompany them five blocks out of the way during the middle of David Letterman.

So I left my car. But I woke up early on Wednesday to move it. I really did. I got to my parking space at 9:45 a.m.

Isn't that early?

Apparantly, it wasn't early enough. I've only experienced the sensation of realizing that my car had disappeared once before. It was in the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. When I went back with my friends to where I thought I had parked, the car wasn't there--and we hadn't lost enough gambling for casino toughs to have repossessed it. We traipsed through all nine ceramic elephant-laden parking levels before we stumbled upon my humble automobile.

But on Huron St., there are no parking levels. And I still had no car to move. I panicked at my two possibilities: either the car was stolen or it had been towed.

I secretly hoped it had been stolen.

I didn't exactly know what to do in either case. So I did what any logical person at a prestigious liberal arts university would do. I went into the corner grocery store and looked as pathetic as possible while I pleaded for help.

I asked the check-out cashier what to do if I thought my car had been towed.