I admit to abusing my pedestrian right of way on the streets of State College, and to walking at an infuriatingly slow pace in front of cars. I'll confess to giving the annoyed motorists a superior smile, as if to suggest that I would be only too happy to litigate, if injured. I claim this latitude as one of the unwritten rights of a student in a college town.

Steer me to the other side of College Avenue and onto campus, though, and I am a changed woman. No longer a mere college student, I'm transformed into a lean and hardened survivor, my eyes and ears attuned to the stealthy attacks of the O.P.P., a band of killers disguised as grounds crews.

For those of you who thought that the acronym O.P.P. originated with Naughty By Nature's song of dubious taste, take a closer look at the navy blue vans and weird carts with odd numbers of wheels whizzing down every road and crosswalk during class changes and at other unannounced intervals. This is the Office of Physical Plant. They are equipped with contraptions of every size and description -- three-wheeled road salters, leaf-blowers, immense leaf-suckers, standard issue vans, and a variety of multi-purpose vehicles. It looks, as a friend once noted, like a Dr. Seuss fantasy land.

You might believe that the O.P.P.'s sole purpose is to maintain and beautify the campus, which it is undeniably good at. It might surprise you to learn, however, that they have a second, covert mission -- ensuring the survival of only the fittest.

If you are having difficulty with this concept, you must never have ventured along the maze of narrow crosswalks between Osmond and Patterson for class. You probably even buy the line that those three-wheeled death machines are necessary for transporting the pruning shears or trowel. Pay attention, then, for a true story.

It is the fall of 1989, a crisp, beautiful day. Scene: the small parking lot slightly north of Rec Hall. Time: early afternoon.

I had just finished jogging around the golf courses. As I crossed back onto campus, there was an almost unnatural quiet and calm; the leaf removal machines were still. As I went through the parking lot, I saw a grounds crew on lunch break. Each and every person was swilling soup or chowing down on a sandwich. These men looked to be serious eaters, and they were occupied.

At the far end of the parking lot begins a branching trail of paths. I chose one of the options and was committed to my course when a grounds crew man gunned down the path in a three-wheeled cart, forcing me to leap to the side for safety.

My attacker disappeared from view as the others continued eating. This was not a general return to action for all of the men; it was an act of unprovoked aggression against a bone-weary, defenseless jogger.

I have found that the safest time to venture through the heart of campus is during any regularly scheduled class hour. From 1:25 to 2:15 p.m., for example, you may travel unmolested. 2:16 p.m. signals the call-to-arms for O.P.P. workers campus-wide.

You may feel that I have featured the three-wheeled cart exclusively, ignoring the hazards of the other vehicles. And that is the beauty of the scheme; no one is beyond the long arm of the O.P.P. While I have felt particularly menaced by the kamikazes on three wheels in the more remote parts of campus, no place is out of the range of the leaf blowers and huge leaf vacuums. Even if you stick to main thoroughfares, there is a van waiting to spray you with mud and the contents of the nearest puddle. And, on dry days, the van drivers have the least patience of any of the motorists. One false step across Pollock will reduce you to little more than a grease spot on the road.

The hazards extend, at times, to the interior of buildings as well. One day, for example, three O.P.P. workers decided that the potted palms in the HUB were not in a visually pleasing configuration; tall palms were next to very short ones in some cases, an aesthetic nightmare.

The redistribution became a source of contention among the men, ended up displacing the majority of the HUB Fish Bowl studiers that ill-fated day, and nearly took the lives of several of the less attentive. I came scant inches from being ground to dust by a rapidly moving potted palm. The plants seemed to be following a bizarre choreography, traversing the room to rest briefly in the center before being dispatched to isolated corners, then recalled for further rearrangement. This seemingly innocuous task endangered many of the less nimble that day as the three grumbling O.P.P. workers discovered yet another method of blotting out students.

College life is filled with many perils, it's true. The O.P.P. is one your parents couldn't have warned you about, cloaked as it is in respectability. It would come as no surprise to me, though, to find out that these grounds crew men moonlighted as hit men. So watch your step and your back -- someone probably is gunning for you.