My guest blogger - Andreas

Parking garage

Picture yourselves on the 22nd of December, wanting to get those last minute gifts that haven't been crossed off from the gift-list, stuck in a parking garage. Sound like fun, no? We rented a car over Christmas so we could get around with the anticipated haul and the kids more easily - readers of this blog should already be familiar. We decided to head in to the nearest greatest shopping mall. I'd studied the route on google first to avoid any bigger mistakes - I took the wrong turn by 'Barf Dog food' (no kidding) but I quickly found a route back to the road I wanted to be on, and the entrance to the shopping mall parking garage with a lit sign that said 'Open spots'. Hooray for me. I turned in, there were a couple of cars ahead of me so I waited patiently for the gate to open up, let a car in, close and open up again a handful of times, while slowly creeping forwards. Then it was finally my turn. I pushed the button for the parking ticket, waited, waited, waited and finally, I waited some more. Then, after waiting some more, I walked outside and looked at the ticket dispenser and to my joy, I found a button that would raise someone, which I eagerly pushed. They would send someone soon. So we waited some more and then finally a security guard showed up. He brought along the wrong set of keys so he left right away. By this time, you can imagine, there was a loong line of vehicles behind us, all waiting patiently for the return of the security guard, occasionally cheering me on with loong honks from their car's horns. Finally the security guard came walking leisurely, opened up the machine, pushed the reset button, locked it back up again, handed me a new ticket and left. Even bowling, which is a lot more serious than parking garages, come with a reset button that can be used by mere mortals, and frivolously so too. A ticket dispenser that can't do anything but dispense tickets could come with a reset button without any harm, couldn't it? I found my way to the second floor, and encountered a traffic jam. There wasn't a single open spot. 3rd floor same deal, except no roof. Hoards of shot-gun passengers were combing the floor for someone returning to their car. It was pandemonium, in slow motion. After spending 15 minutes waiting for the gate to open up, we drove around for another 15, before my wife laid down in an open spot to claim it and I could park in it (after she got up of course, carrying a towel and heading for a beer). Hooray again! We now finally can enter the chaos of the mall, with the Santa that is chasing Emma around, offering her candy that she's too scared to accept. Luckily, most of the shopping was already done so we didn't need a lot of time at the mall. Thus, time to leave. There is a nice machine where you can stick your parking ticket into, and then follow up with your credit card in the same slot. There was a line ahead of me, and by the time I reached the front, there was a line behind me. So I stuck my parking ticket into the machine, and then the credit card, only to discover that it refused to take my card, and I couldn't get the ticket back. My fellow queuers and I frantically pushed buttons. The car is in the garage and the magic ticket that should get me back out again, is inside the machine, refusing to come out. One of the buttons that got pushed, as the line grew behind me, was for security. So for the 2nd time, I'm trying to explain my situation to security, hampered by Dane's inability to understand Bokmal. What on earth are you talking about you ask? When Norway was in a union with Denmark, danish was the written language used in Norway and this is called Bokmal, in essence Danish but with different pronunciation. Anyhow, a nice lady assisted me with the security guards who told me to call security yet again to let me out once I got to the gate. By this time, I saw myself spending another 15 minutes at the gate, trying to explain to another security guard what was going on. We got in the car and drove down to the gate, and this time, no line behind me, and security answered almost immediately and opened the gate without any hassle, to my big surprise. As we left, I quietly vowed to never return, while driving a car. Of course, 2 weeks later, my wife made me eat that vow but this time, it went smooth as silk - and we got a photo of the Barf pet food store sign too.