SOLSC 13/31: Parking Garage Blues

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Lisa, Melanie, and Lanny

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

and for nurturing our writing lives.

My friend, Karen, loves going to the movies.  If I don't move quickly when she offers an invite, I find myself playing a familiar game with her where I name a movie I haven't seen and she replies, "Already seen it."  So this past week, I took her up on an invite to  see "United Kingdom."

She said she would pick me up around 12:30 for the 12:55 showing. That's cutting it a bit close, but one can't complain when someone else is doing the driving.  As she pulled into my driveway, I had just pulled out my red cutting board to slice and core an apple.  I quickly finished, slipped the apple into a plastic bag, and dashed out the door.  

We pulled into the parking garage at Lincoln Center, only to face cones and jacketed attendants, motioning us repeatedly to the next  floor.  Finally we were granted access to a floor.  But after circling for some time, the attendant suggested that we use the tunnel to access parking at Bellevue Place.  Nooooo!  Bellevue Place Parking is nightmare parking. Once you are there, you have to figure out how to get to the skybridge that will let you access Lincoln Square again.  During all this driving around, Karen kept muttering, "I've come to the movies hundreds of times on weekday afternoons and never had trouble finding a parking place." 

We peered down a long tunnel only to see a jacketed attendant motioning us to the dreaded tunnel to Bellevue Place Parking.  I commented that we could check for parking along the way and then turn right before entering the tunnel to nightmare parking.  So we ventured forth, did not find any available parking, and reached the end of the tunnel only to discover that the right turn I had assured Karen of was blocked by yellow cones!

Our die was cast.  We would have to park in Bellevue Place.  We still searched for some time before finding a parking spot, all the time calculating how long the previews would last and assuring ourselves that we would still arrive in the theater before the movie started.  Karen walked to the rear of the car and snapped a picture of the number of the stall where we parked.  We took careful note of the floor we were on - Green, Floor Four.  I even snatched the paper reminder while we waited for the elevator.  We paid attention.  The elevator was called Three Coins.  We should have found another elevator when we read the note that said no access to the sky bridge.  But we took it anyway, ended up in what seemed a dead end, but pushed on some foam doors and found ourselves in the street near The Hyatt.  

I urged Karen forward.  We would be able to access the skybridge from the hotel.  We hopped on an elevator, pushed the skybridge to Lincoln Square button, dashed up the escalator, and bought our tickets.  Karen even bought popcorn (no lines on a weekday afternoon) and we slid into our seats just before the movie started.  Mission accomplished!  

(Watch for Part Two of Parking Garage Blues and what happened after the movie, coming soon to a future Slice of Life post.)