SOLSC 15/31: Parking Garage Blues (verse two)

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.

If you missed the first installment of my parking garage blues, just know that Karen and I came very close to missing the beginning of our movie, "United Kingdom," (but didn't)!  It was an inspiring movie, reminding me of the power of the big screen to tell a story that piques my interest to examine the historical facts and reminding me that there are always those who bravely challenge racial intolerance. 

Okay, movie over, my review over, time to tackle the challenge of the hour.  Will we navigate the twists and turns that lie ahead to successfully find Karen's car?   It's one of those times when one wishes for a trail of breadcrumbs, but no breadcrumbs (or Reese's Pieces) appear.  So off we go!  Down the escalator.  I head lemming-like to the elevator for the Lincoln Square parking garage.  Karen reminds me that we're in nightmare parking (aka Bellevue Place Parking).  So we take the skybridge to Bellevue Place and then find the Hyatt.  

We're above the lobby and so we take the escalator to the lobby.  Only we forget to look for the sketchy street entrance (foam doors, spray painted black) that took us from our elevator to the street outside the Hyatt.  When we board the elevator in the lobby of the Hyatt, we're delighted to see P4 on one of the buttons.  Okay, so we're taking a different elevator back.  That's okay, how big can one level of a parking garage be?  

We disembark, I pull out my green P4 parking garage slip, and we reassure ourselves that we're on the right floor.  We start looking for our elevator (which Karen remembers was called Three Coins) and we keep looking . . . and we keep looking . . . for our elevator.  Three different elevators later and none with the name Three Coins, we begin to realize how large this one parking level really is.  Then we remember that Karen had snapped a picture of the number of our parking stall.

We check her phone for the #,  only to discover that there are no #s on these parking stalls.  What???  I pull out my green P4 parking paper again.  Yes, we're on the right floor.  We try beeping her car.  Nothing!  We separate while I go around one concrete barrier and Karen explores another.  Yep, you guessed it.  We lose each other.  After calling out "Karen, Karen? Karen!" several times -  I decide, no problem, I'll just call her on my cell.  Oops, underground parking garage, no coverage.  

And while I'm wandering around alone, kicking myself for losing my friend, I make an exciting discovery!  Stalls with numbers painted on them.  But only on this one lane of the garage and only on one side. While I'm happily exploring this option and determined not to step away from the numbered stalls, Karen pops into my vision.  I share my discovery, we follow the numbered stalls, find our Three Coins elevator, walk around the corner, and VOILA, Karen's car!  We slide into the seats, laughing at our escapade and eager to be above ground.  And as we exit the garage, my phone beeps with Karen's message.  Why did her phone work in the garage and mine didn't?  We have the same phones and the same carrier!  

Lessons learned:

1.  Don't get separated from your friend when searching for your car in a parking garage.

2.  NEVER allow a parking attendant to lure you (against your better judgement) to nightmare parking via the tunnel to Bellevue Place. 

3.  Just go to the movies at Factoria where there is above ground parking (even though you may have to wait a bit longer for the newer movies to show up).