Hospital

 I visited a hospital. Signs inside instructed me to pay for parking by credit card at a machine inside the hospital before leaving, then take the ticket, go to my car, exit the garage, insert the ticket at the gate, raising the bar, and drive away. But the payment machine inside didn't work. People were lining up, waiting to pay. No one could leave. They called maintenance. The maintenance guy was already busy doing a million things around the building, plus he hated his job, hated his life, hated all the people in line who couldn't figure out how to use a damn ticket machine. Of course, it was a hospital, so all the people in line were old enough to remember the days when humans ran the parking garages. The maintenance guy was the only person there under 40, so he probably knew what Skype and Java meant. It turns out it's not all that easy to put a credit card and a parking stub into a machine while walking with a cane and trying to find your reading glasses. The maintenance guy looked at the ticket. It was in backwards. There was an arrow pointing the way to insert it, but the print was tiny and invisible to glaucoma patients. He took the ticket out and turned it around. It worked. He walked away quickly, avoiding eye contact with us. He pretended to listen to his phone so we wouldn't talk to him. He probably had to go mop up urine or chase a runaway wheelchair down a ramp. I waited in line behind the walkers and knee braces, got my ticket and went to the parking garage. There was a car broken down in the middle of the lanes, blocking all traffic. Dozens of cars were lined up, half of them blocked in, half blocked out, engines running, filling the garage with carbon monoxide. The stalled car was a huge Mercedes S class, driven by a little old man the size of a spider monkey. He chugged his starter over and over. It sounded like CPOD. No one got out of their cars to help, they just sat there producing CO and texting BFFs. It was up to me. I told the spider monkey to get behind the wheel and steer while I pushed his car single-handedly out of the way toward an overflowing dumpster. The titanium screws and teflon disks in my spine held up quite well, thank you for asking. Traffic began moving. I staggered to my car, breathing through my sleeve, wheezy from the poison gas. I started up and got in line with the other cars, marching toward daylight and freedom. The line stopped. Trapped again. I walked up ahead and saw the exit gate outside wasn't opening. A white haired woman shorter than her dashboard kept pushing her ticket in the slot. Nothing doing. I noticed it was raining. Maybe the parking robots don't work in the rain. I told myself to remember to only get hospitalized during good weather. I walked to the gate and took the old lady's ticket out of her bony little grip. She had it backward. I turned it around so the arrow was pointing into the slot. The gate opened. I went back to my car in the garage, holding my breath until my eyes bulged out. There was a guy behind me honking his horn. One of his fingers stuck out further than the others. I assumed it was a medical condition.