Life’s a gas, laugh it up

Don’t you hate it when you pass someone on the freeway who’s been pulled over and think to yourself, SUCKA, and then you get pulled over yourself?

Before you ask me how much my ticket was, this didn’t actually happen to me. But I was in my gym’s parking garage the other day waiting to exit when it became apparent that the guy in front of me hadn’t gotten his parking pass validated by the gym. Since the cost of the garage without validation is a solid $8 (yes, I’ve forgotten to get my ticket validated once too), I could see that he was attempting to talk his way out of the parking garage. And from experience I knew there was no way he was getting out without either paying the $8 or reversing out of the lane, parking again, and getting the ticket validated.

We (the car behind me and I) sat there for a few minutes while he waved his arms around and the faithful parking attendant shook her head and pointed to the adjacent lane where he could pull over if he wished. He finally acquiesced and sent his significant other to me and the car behind me to ask politely if we could back up to which I replied cheerily, ‘twasn’t a problem, I’ve been in the same situation.

Then I pulled up to the attendant and handed her my validated ticket.

“Your ticket isn’t validated either!”

I’m sure I looked shocked as I exclaimed, “What?!” and took it back from her, sure she’d made a mistake. But she hadn’t. So I bit the bullet, reversed (by this time the car behind me was getting frustrated), pulled in behind the first offender and ran for the elevator. I’m not paying $8 just for a work-out!

This wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t actually realized at the BEGINNING of my gym session that I had left my parking ticket in the car, ran out to the car to get it, and handed it to the front desk attendant to be stamped. She took it and did something with it, but apparently did not stamp it. Thanks for nothin’.

And the moral of this story is to never show your frustration or impatience when the person ahead of you is taking their sweet time, because YOU could be the next person wasting someone’s time! I ended up crossing paths with the first car’s passenger, she on her way out of the gym and I on my way back in, and we both laughed at ourselves.