No one likes hospitals, except, perhaps, the people who work there. The rest of us really don’t want to be there, whether we’re the one getting patched up, or whether we’re visiting the person being treated. It’s stressful and often painful, even if you’re getting wonderful care.
That stress is made so much worse by a feature unique to hospitals. No, I’m not talking about the food. I’m talking about The Hospital Parking Lot.
First, there is the size. If you’re visiting a hospital of even moderate size, the parking lot is huge. Like ‘need a map and a sherpa guide’ huge. And for some reason, if your hospital has multiple buildings on the same campus, none of the parking lots are actually connected. Dog help you if you enter the lot from Samson St. when you should have entered from Furby Avenue, because there will be multiple barricades, boulevards, and possibly Hadrian’s Wall between you and your final destination.
Second, there are the potholes. It doesn’t seem to matter how well-funded the hospital is, the parking lot is always atrocious. If you didn’t have a broken ankle before visiting the hospital, you’ll have one now. And say goodbye to your car axles and rear bumper while you’re at it.
Third, and worst of all is the parking payment system. I don’t know who is responsible for their design, but it as though they took all the textbooks on human factors in system design and threw them into a fire pit — otherwise known as the pothole in lot H8856z.
When you enter a parking lot, you’re immediately confronted with a ticket dispensing barricade. These ticket dispensers are NOT friendly to short people. After several minutes of fruitless and undignified flailing out the window, I have to throw the car into park, undo my seat belt, open the door and do a complicated yoga move to grab the ticket. All while listening to the impatient 6’5″ bro dude in the pickup truck behind me leaning on his horn.
Then you have to scramble back into the car, trying not to close the door on your foot on the way in, and get the car into gear in time for the barricade lift. Mess up the timing and you’ll have a new roof silhouette, and buddy behind you will still be standing on his truck horn.
If you managed to actually make into the right building for your treatment or your visit, paying for your ticket is the next hurdle. I have several tips for this process:
- If you can, avoid coming out of the hospital at night. This is because none of the ticket payment systems will have working lights.
- Also avoid coming out of the hospital if you’re fifty years of age or over. This is because all of the ticket payment systems have instructions that are written in five point font, in black, on a black background.
- Definitely do not come out of the hospital unless you have 24 quarters issued in 1985, because that will be the only acceptable form of payment at the machine you select.
One other mistake to avoid: do not assume that the parking payment system is the same throughout the whole parking lot. I fed my ticket into one of a half dozen identical black boxes in the lot. The machine responded with:
HA HA YOU FOOL. THIS IS A TERRA INCOGNITO SYSTEM BOX. THAT WAS A PARKING POWER CORPORATION TICKET.
Me: Okay, give it back.
HA HA CHOMP CHOMP GULP BURP
Me: Treks to ticket dispensing barricade, presses button.
HA HA YOU FOOL. NO TICKET WITHOUT VEHICLE.
Me: Treks back to hospital, rations dwindling, finds emergency ticket replacement machine, presses button.
HA HA YOU FOOL, oh. FINE, HAVE A TICKET.
Me: Treks back to payment machine. It is very dark outside and the one light is flickering badly.
HA HA YOU FOOL, THAT WAS THE CREDIT CARD SLOT.
Me: Give it back.
HA HA CHOMP CHOMP SPIT
*confetti*
Me: Treks back to hospital, rations gone, finds emergency ticket replacement machine, presses button.
HA HA YOU FOOL. HAVE A TICKET.
*fires ticket across the room so hard it embeds in a wall*
Me: Treks back to payment machine. It’s now raining.
HA HA YOU FOOL. KEY PRODUCTS ONLY.
Me: What… what does that even mean?
IT’S RAINING. DO YOU THINK I WOULD TAKE SOGGY TICKETS? USE YOUR HOSPITAL ID TO EXIT.
Me: But… I’m not hospital staff?
THEN PARKING IS FREE YOU MORON.
Me: *Seeing that parking barricades are up, sprints back to car, drives through labyrinth, arrives at barricade just as it stops raining.*
MACHINE: WHAT ARE YOU, SOME KIND OF THIEF? PAY UP!
BARRICADE: *comes down on car hood*
BRODUDE IN TRUCK BEHIND ME: *hooooooooooonk*
Me: Currently serving time for assault and property damage. Does anyone have 22 one hundred dollar bills issued in 2007 so I can make bail?
Sharna
Here in my country the parking system at hospitals are not that bad. Besides the parking attendants that try to squeeze your between two massive SUV’s who have already taken up most of the space… Aah don’t we just love visiting hospitals