I did something bad. Maybe illegal, or perhaps just desperate. At the end of my shift at Jefferson Hospital Sunday morning I went to retrieve my car from the parking lot. The wrong lot, as it happened, given that the mentor I was shadowing gave me a coupon for free parking at the correct Jefferson garage, and I had landed in a different one. 

 

I resigned myself to the price, and headed for the exit. I inserted my parking ticket in the machine, which promptly spit it out as unreadable. Then I did what I always do, which is to try multiple times. Because you never know. Well, sometimes you know. I backed up, which was made easier both by the camera that I now depend on and the fact that there was not a single other driver anywhere in sight. Poking the ticket into another lane fared no better, and I was stumped. After looking in the office for a human being, and pushing the help button approximately twenty times, I was still stuck. 

 

I had a faint recollection of a story about a person who opened their fortune cookie to read a message of distress. 

"I am trapped in a Chinese cookie factory!" 

 

But at least that person had something to eat. I was doomed to sleep in this cement jungle until Monday, when commuters and presumably attendants would return. 

 

A man with an umbrella walked by and offered assistance. He tried to strong-arm the bar blocking my retreat, but it was stubborn. He, too, checked the office and finally suggested that I try to squeak past the bar, by going over the curb. Which I did. My car, whose name is Midge, expressed her extreme unhappiness with this choice, and yet eventually both of us were liberated. Probably security cameras recorded the whole debacle, but what could I do?

 

Never mind. Don't tell me. I plan to never risk my sanity to a parking garage again. 

 

The next day I called my mechanic to ask if I had done irreparable damage to my beautiful new car.  He was willing to lay his head on the cold cement and check it out. 

 

"It's fine. There is a scratch, but no real damage."

 

I exhaled. Having reassurance was worth whatever he might ask for. But he asked for nothing. 

 

Perhaps there will be times in the coming week when I can do as much. Not about an exhaust pipe but another point of distress that someone might find themselves in. 

 

That's what I will look for.