Bob Gets Stuck Downtown

Yesterday, Anthony and I went to the Los Angeles Beer Festival in Downtown L.A. We were driving around looking for parking and spotted a garage that was fairly close and fairly cheap. Perfect! We took a ticket, drove my car (I call him Bob) in, and parked in a spot closest to the stairs. That was easy! We headed out onto the street, walked to the festival to meet his friend and went about our day tasting a bunch of different local beers. Overall, the festival was a blast and afterward we decided to head over to Plan Check for a burger since it was right next to the garage we parked in. When we were finished, we walked to the garage to get my car and head home. Anthony's friend was with us because we told him that we would give him a ride home since it was on the way. When we walked up to the parking garage, we noticed that the doors were shut. What the hell? There was a guy standing outside on the curb that told us the garage closed at 4:00 pm. WHAT!!?? Sure enough, we looked at the sign and it said, as clear as day, that it closed at 4:00 pm. We didn't even see that! Does anyone really even look at those signs when pulling into a garage in Downtown L.A? We assumed that garages stay open until at least 10:00 pm, right? It was only 7:00 pm right now but according to that sign, we were 3 hours late. Shit! What were we going to do? We called the number on the sign and luckily an operator picked up and told us that if we can get into the garage to get to the car, the doors would open and we would be able to get out. Okay, that sounded easy enough right? We just had to get into the building. Anthony and his friend tried every door imaginable (locked) and even tried to go down the ramp adjacent to the garage for the residences in the building. Fail. I noticed that there was a medical office attached to the garage and there was a lady sitting in the waiting room. I knocked on the door to see if she could open the glass door for us that was directly outside of the office door but she shook her head and told me through the glass that she was locked in the lobby of that medical office. What was happening? How was she locked in and we were locked out yet neither of us could help each other. This seemed a little Twilight Zone-ish.

The three of us were pacing and running around trying everything and calling every number on the building desperately. All we wanted to do was go home! Realistically, we could just Uber home and come back in the morning but what a headache. All of a sudden, this girl emerged out of a random door, did one of those running trips where she couldn't catch herself but was about to take a big digger, ate shit on the concrete, then picked herself up and disappeared. I looked at Anthony, then his friend, acknowledged that we all saw that mysterious girl fall, and then went right back to trying to find a way into that damn parking garage. I swear if I was the only one who saw that I would have thought I was dreaming and/or intoxicated. Thank goodness there were other witnesses. Finally, Anthony's friend had a genius idea and slipped a piece of paper into the crack of the sliding glass door leading to the building attached to the garage. It opened enough for him to slip his fingers in and pull the doors open....YES! We were saved! We ran into the building like we were escaping a police chase and made our way into the parking garage. And there he was, my poor Bob, waiting for us to come back like a sad puppy. Anthony jumped in and started the car. "We're here, Bob!" I said as I made my way up the ramp. Again, as if we were running from the authorities after a mad jewelry heist, we dove into car as the tires squealed and Anthony drove towards the exit. Praying that the gates would open like the man on the phone told us, they slowly opened as we crept up toward the exit and we beeped the horn in pure joy. We were finally out! And because there was no attendant on duty, it was free to boot! So I guess it worked out in our favor after all. We were all cheering as we turned onto the street, so happy that our adventure was finally over. "Hey guys?" I said. "Can we talk about that chick who took a digger on the curb next to us?" We all started laughing so hard we were crying. It felt so good to be free!