An afternoon choose-your-own-adventure

[asakiyume]

You have to get a document signed at an activist organization in the center of Springfield. When you get to the destination, you see that there's no on-street parking. The organization is located next to a condemned building. Behind the condemned building there appears to be some parking, but it looks full. There's a Burger King across the street--one could park there. Further ahead, there seems to be a parking lot.

Do you (a) attempt to park behind the condemned building, (b) park at the Burger King, or (c) drive toward the parking lot?

If you choose (a), you discover it's full. You have to make a 36-point turn in a small space and exit, whereupon your choices are (b) and (c).

If you choose (b), do you (d) buy something at the BK (y'know, to make it legit that you're parking there) or (e) go straight to the activist organization? If (d), congrats, you get something yummy to eat. Now you're at (e). Hold that thought.

Or do you--as I did--choose (c)? If so, you discover that it's a permit-only parking lot for the nearby community college. However, there are **lots** of open spaces. Do you (f) park there anyway, or (g) go driving further afield?

If you choose (g), you get pretty far down the street and see that there's no place available AT ALL EVER. Oh, wait, but here's a charismatic church's parking lot. You could park here; it's not Sunday. If you choose to (h) park here, you have a long walk back to the activist organization (e).

I turned back around, however, and decided to park illegally in the community college parking lot (f). If you choose this, you observe that there's a parking lot monitor on duty. Do you (i) revert to (g) or (b)? Or do you (j) slink out of the car thinking, "Whatever, man, just ticket me." Or do you (k) decide to approach him and ask if he knows a place you could park legally? (Why would you do this? just do (b) and get the Burger King food! But (k) was my decision.)

"Well, you're obviously a student here," the guard says. Confronted with this misapprehension, do you (l) correct him or (m) let the misconception stand? If you choose (l), I can't imagine what he does. Does he blow up at you? Tell you to park at the (b) Burger King? Or maybe say, "Allll Right, JUST THIS ONCE you can park here"? Who knows. As you can tell, I went with (m). He told me where I could go to get a parking permit.

"But what about right now?" I said. "What should I do right now? With my car?"

"You can leave it here while you get the permit. But by next week they're going to be ticketing."

So that brings me to (e). I hadn't had a very good impression of this activist organization up to now, but when I got in the door, I was greeted by a whole bunch of really engaged, friendly seeming people, mainly people of color, not crusading white folks, which is appropriate for the location, and there were all sorts of useful-seeming handouts in pockets on the walls, and I got a very energetic, positive feeling from it. Which goes to show you how different an in-person impression can be.

On my way back, I didn't see the parking lot attendant, so there was no need to dig myself deeper into deception. I did, however, overhear this conversation:

Woman, rolling down car window, and directing her remarks to a guy who was helping repair the parking lot fence: "Don't be trying to pretend you don't know me, and then come round trying to kidnap my baby!" The guy said something I couldn't hear, and then voices rose, and I was thinking, "Yiiiiikes," but then the woman in the car was laughing, and the guy was smiling, and then the car drove off so . . . all's well that ends well?

Comments

I love overheard conversation

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

It would be great to paint them, wouldn't it?

So many really different spaces people come from!

Re: I love overheard conversation

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I would love to do that! I still have a vivid image in my head. Unfortunately my drawing skills are not sufficient to represent them the way I'd like to.