Round and Round
Monday morning and rain. And a parking lot that is always overflowing. That was the bane of my existance today. And it included a clueless driver who doesn't read traffic signs.
My father had an appointment in the outpatient clinic at the nearest hospital, which services almost 400,000 thousand people in its area of influence. It seemed like all 400,000 had an appointment this morning and drove there in their cars. The appointment was at eleven o'clock, so we left the house at ten. That gave us slightly less than a half hour for travel, around fifteen to twenty minutes to park, and ten to fifteen minutes to cool our heels in the waiting room before the hour. Normally that timetable has always worked. Not today.
The trip was fine. I dropped off my father in pouring rain at the porte cochere leading to the clinics. Then I went to park the car.
Let's understand the parking situation. Ever since this hospital opened, in 2000, it has been surrounded by a pretty parking lot, with its green spaces, winding lanes, and shady trees. Ever since the beginning, it has been too small. So small, that it is normal for cars to climb up on sidewalks and rotaries and create new parking spaces out of the blue. Until a few years ago, the owner of a field just outside the entrance opened it up for paid parking. He made a bundle. Along the lanes that surround part of the hospital you can find more cars than there are neighbors. A garage also accepts paying guests, alleging the owners leave their cars to have them serviced. The garage must have seventy mechanics to get through all those cars in one day. In 2009, a new subterranean parking garage was built. It is the second-most expensive parking garage in all of Galicia. Suffice it to say that on normal days the garage never fills. Even after denouncing the owner of the field and the mechanic's garage for illegal business competition. The owner of the field had to close it, but the mechanic simply claimed his garage had nothing to do with parking.
Today, however, it was above and beyond the normal nightmare. At one point, as I was rounding a lane to start my search from the top again, the cars in front were stopped. Someone must have found a spot. We moved foward a little, then stopped. And stayed there. For more than fifteen minutes. The cars that had come down couldn't continue because of the cars in front of them turning onto the other lane. The cars that were trying to continue up the lane I was semi-incorporated into couldn't continue either. Monday morning rainy chaos. When the rain let up a little and I lowered my window, I could hear the many car horns beeping harmoniously that haunting melody, "What Is Taking So Long?!". A security-cum-parking guard was standing down the lane, looking at the confusion. And continued looking. And was standing there, looking. For some reason, he must have decided to move. He came casually walking up, and was lost in the curve before us. Some time after he had first decided to look at things, the cars in front started to move.
By that time I was starting to tear my hair out. It was already past eleven and my father must have been wondering if I had been kidnapped and no one had told him. As I crawled along, realizing I would have to leave my money in the parking garage, I saw what the problem had been. A hapless driver had driven into the lane from the wrong direction. She had not seen the blazoned No Entry signs at the top and found herself unable to advance against the phalanx of cars coming up, and not able to back up into immutable traffic without scraping a few cars and causing a collision. The guard had helped her to move her car to a side to let irate drivers through before one of them went berserk. That would probably have been me.
The good point of the morning was that my father's health continues to be excellent. And I won't have to tread into that welter of asphalt despair until July.
My father had an appointment in the outpatient clinic at the nearest hospital, which services almost 400,000 thousand people in its area of influence. It seemed like all 400,000 had an appointment this morning and drove there in their cars. The appointment was at eleven o'clock, so we left the house at ten. That gave us slightly less than a half hour for travel, around fifteen to twenty minutes to park, and ten to fifteen minutes to cool our heels in the waiting room before the hour. Normally that timetable has always worked. Not today.
The trip was fine. I dropped off my father in pouring rain at the porte cochere leading to the clinics. Then I went to park the car.
Let's understand the parking situation. Ever since this hospital opened, in 2000, it has been surrounded by a pretty parking lot, with its green spaces, winding lanes, and shady trees. Ever since the beginning, it has been too small. So small, that it is normal for cars to climb up on sidewalks and rotaries and create new parking spaces out of the blue. Until a few years ago, the owner of a field just outside the entrance opened it up for paid parking. He made a bundle. Along the lanes that surround part of the hospital you can find more cars than there are neighbors. A garage also accepts paying guests, alleging the owners leave their cars to have them serviced. The garage must have seventy mechanics to get through all those cars in one day. In 2009, a new subterranean parking garage was built. It is the second-most expensive parking garage in all of Galicia. Suffice it to say that on normal days the garage never fills. Even after denouncing the owner of the field and the mechanic's garage for illegal business competition. The owner of the field had to close it, but the mechanic simply claimed his garage had nothing to do with parking.
Today, however, it was above and beyond the normal nightmare. At one point, as I was rounding a lane to start my search from the top again, the cars in front were stopped. Someone must have found a spot. We moved foward a little, then stopped. And stayed there. For more than fifteen minutes. The cars that had come down couldn't continue because of the cars in front of them turning onto the other lane. The cars that were trying to continue up the lane I was semi-incorporated into couldn't continue either. Monday morning rainy chaos. When the rain let up a little and I lowered my window, I could hear the many car horns beeping harmoniously that haunting melody, "What Is Taking So Long?!". A security-cum-parking guard was standing down the lane, looking at the confusion. And continued looking. And was standing there, looking. For some reason, he must have decided to move. He came casually walking up, and was lost in the curve before us. Some time after he had first decided to look at things, the cars in front started to move.
By that time I was starting to tear my hair out. It was already past eleven and my father must have been wondering if I had been kidnapped and no one had told him. As I crawled along, realizing I would have to leave my money in the parking garage, I saw what the problem had been. A hapless driver had driven into the lane from the wrong direction. She had not seen the blazoned No Entry signs at the top and found herself unable to advance against the phalanx of cars coming up, and not able to back up into immutable traffic without scraping a few cars and causing a collision. The guard had helped her to move her car to a side to let irate drivers through before one of them went berserk. That would probably have been me.
The good point of the morning was that my father's health continues to be excellent. And I won't have to tread into that welter of asphalt despair until July.
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