‘The Great Escape,’ or, ‘Cheating Death’

The documentation of this story has been in slow progress over the past four weeks, since it happened almost a month ago. I’ve been busy finishing school, and as of 11:00pm today, I officially finished my final exam for college ever. (Leave it to me to have to pull an all-nighter for the LAST THING I EVER DO IN COLLEGE. I got distracted and went drinking the night before in the middle of studying, okay? Stop your judging.) I’m on a very cramped Boeing 737 flying down to that city of pain, Los Angeles, to visit my lab at UCLA (see entries from June to August of 2008 for more shits, giggles, et cetera et cetera et cetera), and since I’d much rather poke a million little holes in my wrists with the free plastic toothpicks that the flight crew offers so readily than have to sit through an hour and half between Otis McNevershower and a screaming baby (because that’s FUCKING HAPPENING RIGHT NOW), I’m going to take the time to finish this damn thing while blasting Lil’ Jon and Flo Rida as loudly as possible into my headphones. The voices in my head get louder when I’m in confined spaces with people I hate.
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~To Mama Goose, my muse.~

This is a story of intrigue, mystery, high-flying adventure, passionate romance, unforgiving betrayal, and, of course, stickin’ it to the man. That, or a bunch of desperate middle-aged Chinese folks borderline breaking the law. Take your pick.

A few Sundays ago, the younger brother – let’s call him Leon, just for kicks – of a good friend of mine at Berkeley – let’s call her Forrest, for good reason – was on break from his high school and was spending the weekend up here with his sister. Forrest, being a close family friend and just freaking adorable, very easily talked me into calling my mom to drive up to Berkeley and have dinner with us.

Now, I try not to write about my mother, but this requires a little introduction. When my mother comes to Berkeley, the only – ONLY – places she will eat at are Cafe Intermezzo and Great China. True, she doesn’t visit very often, but when she does, I always get free food, and I have absolutely zero reason to complain about either of those fine establishments. Forrest and Leon, being Taiwanese natives, obviously opted for Great China, it being one of the best Chinese restaurants in the area. My mother drove to Great China, expecting eventually circle around several times to find a parking spot four blocks away, but almost like the revelation of the Grail itself, we saw a brand spankin’ new parking garage RIGHT NEXT TO THE RESTAURANT. “Winner winner, chicken dinner,” I thought to myself, and very rudely backseat-drove the car/my mother into that parking garage. But then again, she wasn’t complaining either.

We parked. We banqueted. We drank pot of tea after pot of tea. We made merry for two joyous, Chinese hours.

But this is where the story takes a dastardly turn. Cue Shostakovich’s The Bolt Suite, Op. 27a. III: Variations.

We exit the restaurant, bellies full and brains a-twitter with jokes and stories shared over some really good Peking duck. But three seconds later, our bubble burst.

There was a gate down, blocking the entrance and exit to the parking lot entirely.

We stood staring at those steel bars, not quite sure how to feel, thoughts and emotions dashing back and forth not unlike our half-human, half-Vulcan friend Spock. “What’s going on? Why are we locked out?’ we queried to nobody.

“I know, what is this?” a mysterious voice replied, as if we were in a real-live RPG video game. We turned around to find a middle-aged Chinese-American couple staring at that same icy cold prison in bewilderment. “There must be some sort of mistake.” We were locked out and our poor car was stuck inside, swallowed by the beast known as “The System” and facing a doomed destiny of abandonment and skipping from foster home to foster home, eventually ending up sucking dick for crack on the street at the age of 14.

I looked around and realized what the mistake was. The parking lot, owned and operated by the City of Berkeley, had designated this parking to close at 8PM on Sundays. There was no contact number to call and none of the restaurants nearby could do anything about it.

I know what you’re thinking. “Good job, dumbass, way to NOT READ DIRECTIONS. Didn’t you learn ANYTHING from STAR testing and the SATs?” But that was not the mistake. The mistake was the City of Berkeley being retarded and closing a major parking lot at EIGHT O’CLOCK AT NIGHT, rendering it virtually useless on Sundays. Good job losing a ton of potential cash on a weekend night when people actually like to GO OUT TO EAT.

Soon, more groups who had similarly (and foolishly) parked their cars in this garage showed up and expressed the same distress. Some took the news with a slight hit and obvious disappointment, but were generally civil and calm. One man was not so. His obvious subscription to Douchebag Quarterly and the Encyclopedia of Verbal Abuse was reflected in his language and frequent use of his catchphrase, “HORSE SHIIIIIT!” His ladymate looked around, embarrassed, and looked very apologetic. We forgave, because we understood his pain.

Now, the design of this garage gate is such that there is a “Gate Up/Down” button on the wall about two feet away from the gate. However, the gate bars were sufficiently close together, making it impossible to stick an arm through to reach the button.

That first middle-aged Chinese American man decided he had had enough and went back into Great China. He returned with a broomstick. After some fiddling around and a lot of poking and prodding with the broomstick, he was able to hit the Gate Up/Down button on the wall. The gate slowly opened while everyone sighed a breath of relief; some exclaimed squeals of joy and gratitude.

You know how Jack Bauer just runs into problem after problem after problem, all in the same day? Boy, we sure could use his help. After we all walked into the garage, we found our next problem: the bars. When the car enters the garage, you push a button to retrieve a ticket and the bar gate rises up to let the car through, and when exiting, you have to insert the paid ticket into the collecting reader to raise the exit bar gate. We went to the automatic pay stations to try to pay for our tickets, but the stations had been locked out because it was after hours and would not accept our cash. We went back to the gate and found a “HELP” button on the ticket collecting reader. We pushed the button and immediately heard a phone ringing nearby. The lot of us followed the ringing, like lost ducklings following their mama’s quacks.

We arrived at a manned pay station…which was locked and dark and unmanned. Our cries for help were going to the ringing phone inside the station, which of course was no help at all. “HORSE SHIIIIIIT!” again, this time reverberating throughout the depths of the cave.

“What the hell are we gonna do?” a woman desperately cried. I could hear a slight shaking in her voice, as if her car being stuck in a garage were on equal grounds as being stranded on an island with aliens or whatever the fuck J.J. Abrams can pull out of his ass.

Lo, a savior: enter the same resourceful middle-aged Chinese American man who got us past Level 1 by acquiring and equipping Broomstick and defeating the Level 1 boss, BUTTON. (Ok I’m done nerding out) The man whipped out his keys and, cross my heart, started unscrewing the bar gate from the hinge. We stared at him in bewilderment, some slack-jawed in absolute disbelief that this man would have the Jack Bauer Balls of Steel to do something so daring, so outside-the-box, so incredibly heroic, and so freaking illegal that we were surprised the cops weren’t all over our asses at that point.

CLUNK. The bar sat dead as that lone noise rang through the underground lot. Still we stood there, feeling nothing but the silence of the night and the ever-present shock.

“Come on, what are you people standing around for? Let’s get the hell outta here!” exclaimed Hero while waving his arms excitedly. Almost as if a video were going from Pause to Play, all of us simultaneously began running towards our cars. While briskly walking back to our car in the back corner of the lot, Forrest, Leon, and I exchanged looks of HOLY CRAP THIS CAN’T BE REAL and WHAT IF THE COPS BUST US? My mother, on the other hand, seemed to ignore all that and actually seemed to be glowing with pride rather than glad to be free of our predicament. I suspect that her feeling of internal pride was because it was a Chinese man who had solved our problems, and therefore by proxy she had somehow contributed to the solving of the problem because she was Chinese. That, or pride in the intellectual power of our people. TECHNOROGY!

One by one, we all lined up and drove up the ramp as fast as possible and GTFO’d like no other. When is was our turn to leave, my mother hesitated for a second. “What are you doing?” I asked her. She mentioned that not for a second did anybody else think about paying for their tickets. My mom, being the righteous and just woman that she is, insisted on having me returning the following day and paying for the overnight price of the ticket, which is $15. I said sure.

I still have the ticket.