Parking aggravation

[Kyung]

We started at 9:30 and went to 6:55, which is a very long day for me. Bec. I have to leave my house at 7 a.m. to make it to downtown L.A.

Then I parked in the Los Angeles Mall, which closes at 6 p.m. This is before I found out the attorney was planning on going past 6 p.m. So I had to pre-pay my parking and tape the parking receipt to the inside windshield of my car so they wouldn't tow it. Then after we were done for the day, which if we ended at 6:55, I didn't get packed up for another 20 minutes.

Then I had to find City Hall East so that I could go down their elevator bec. the regular parking entrances were closed bec. it was after hours. The building I was in closed at 5 p.m. The security guard did not know where I was supposed to go. So he directed me to the police substation across the street. Thank goodness it was open. They knew where I needed to go.

Then I had to walk to City Hall East to talk to the watch commander and get him to let me use the elevation to get to the parking structure. At this point, I was back at the Los Angeles Mall, all the escalators had been turned off. So I had to drag my bags up and down stairs and escalators.

Once, I made my way to City Hall East and was able to use their elevator to access P1, then I had to walk the length of the parking lot to get to my car. Then I had to take this weird maze to get out of the parking lot.

Exhausted.

[Judy]

Look at the bright side, you don't have to deal with the Los Angeles Mall for parking! There's a bright side to everything. Sometimes it's a bit hard to find, though.

You know, some of those mixed breed dogs are freakin' expensive. Neighbors bout a pug/chihuahua mix (or some such thing) and it was expensive!

[Clay Frazier]

Yeah, but it has to be either made up or really hard to write and not in my dictionary in order to get off.
It's a three-week trial, so it's wreaking of despiration in here.

[Kyung]

Okay. Well, that's craziness. So if you don't have a dog, do you get off jury duty?

[Clay Frazier]

Aggravation in Indio:
Jury selection has boiled down to what kind of dog you have. Every juror must state their dogs' name and bogus breed like "chiweegle," which, according to google, doesn't even exist.

I guess kidnapping with guns has a direct correlation to hunting which relates to how much they love their pekingeses

[Katy Cuellar]

Many times I've found the parking lot closed down and a sign saying I had to go elsewhere to get my keys. Fortunately, I keep two sets of keys in my purse and can drive to the other place to get the keys rather than dragging all my equipment up and down the hills of SF to find the other parking lot where my keys are.

[Lisa Breiter]

Oh, my gosh, Kyung, what a nightmare! So glad you came out okay. We have similar quirky nightime closings in Chicago.

I once went out a door that locked behind me in a high-rise building in Chicago. The door had a light up "Exit" sign above it so I thought it led to the elevator bank. The problem was it led to a vestibule with another locked door locked from the inside. I was truly panicked, but had the presence of mind to write a note and slip it under the first door "Help! I am locked in this room, please let me out!" The cleaning personnel came by and opened the door. I've never hugged a complete stranger so hard in my life! Now when I am directed by an attorney to an "Exit" door after hours other than the one I came in, I always say, where does this lead to? Are you sure I can get out here? then I relate my story and get a laugh.

[Judy]

Across from the Federal Building. Disgusting parking situation.

[Stacy Tegner]

Kyung, it's so funny I read this this morning. Not a parking issue, but yesterday after my 5 pm dr. depo ends (6:15), attys and dr. get up and leave. I'm in the "kitchen" of this office building in Oakland packing up. So I leave out the same door they do (and the same one we went in), it enters into a small courtyard between the backside of two buildings. Well, this "courtyard" or alley gets padlocked from the outside, obviously after hours. So there I am standing in the courtyard with 10-foot high fences on either side that are locked. The door I just came out is a key-pad only entry and the other few doors that are in the courtyard are all locked up tight. A little panic sets in, but thankfully after about 10 minutes (while I'm on the phone with the CR that I took the job for ~ she can't get anyone to answer the phone at the dr. office and she doesn't have a cell phone for her client) a janitor walks by in the parking lot. He doesn't have a key so he has to go find someone. Thank goodness someone was still in the building with a key. I would have been pretty embarrassed if I had to call 911 to get out of there :))

[Kyung]

I'm thankful it was still light out. I'd hate to be wandering around in the dark looking for City Hall East.

[Judy]

I got stuck in that same parking mall, about the same time at night. I seriously thought my life was ending that night. I finally came upon a man that had a high-end car parked in a space with his title above his space, CEO of some company. Asked him where the heck I was and where was I supposed to be. He says, "Get in, I'll take you closer." OMG, just get in a stranger's car in an empty underground lot? He ended up driving me somewhere in the lot, then we had to get out of his car and walk through this maintenance tunnel, that strangely enough he had a key to get through the locked door. Yes, obviously he was a good guy since I'm here (he even carried my equipment through the tunnel), but still, very scary place after a certain hour. I'll never park there again. Oh, and I had no phone reception down there. It was truly a horrible experience.