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Carri, my assistant, that had the car accident about a month ago, remember her? Well, her wife, Pili, broke her thumb, badly, last night. We met them for lunch, and they were both tired. Pili was both sick to her stomach from the painkillers, and still in pain. It seems like if the meds make you ill they should at least take all the pain away, too.

We hugged them good-bye, and then proceeded to discover we were locked in the parking garage. Yep, couldn’t get out. It would take us re-parking going into the hospital attached to the other side of the garage and calling security to ask for help to be told that we needed only to put in five dollars in the machine-thingie and we would be free.

Problem we had no cash on us. Security told us there was an ATM in the hospital. Great, unlock the doors we are trapped on the other side of and we’ll come inside and use the ATM, get our money, and be free. Nope.

We were at a doctor’s entrance, and without a keycard no opening the door. Perfect. So another trip in the elevator, a little more wandering around, and we finally headed outside and towards the main hospital building. Two lanes of very busy street with a pedestrian crossing light that was broken, and we were finally in the main lobby of the hospital. Or were we?

No, as it turned out. We were not in the main lobby, though it looked pretty lobbyish and main to us, but it wasn’t the lobby we were looking for. We called security yet again, because there were no employees of any kind with in sight to ask a question of. Again, perfect. Security says, "There should be one down there, too." "Where?" Jon asks. They didn’t know, just somewhere.

I finally spotted a small sign at the faaaarrrrr end of this huge open space. I motioned to Jon, he said good-bye to the unhelpful help, and we trekked towards the sign. By this time I was expecting it to be out of order, or vanished, but it wasn’t. It worked, we got our money, except that the smallest denomination the machine gave was a ten. The machine/thingie in the parking garage does not give change. We needed five dollars, just five dollars. I remembered a Bread Co. on the way to the hospital, so we back-tracked. Jon bought a lemonade, got change, and we had one five dollar bill.

We walked back to the parking garage, threaded our way back the way we had come to find our car was still there, waiting for us to figure this all out. And, of course, the machine/thingie didn’t like the only five dollar bill we had. It kept spitting it out, several more frustrating minutes later it finally swallowed our money and raised the gate.

I said, "Drive quick, before it changes its mind." He drove quick.

We are home. We are safe. Pili will see an orthopedist on Monday, because no one will work on a weekend. Who can blame them?

I wrote this blog several times, and rewrote it, and rewrote it, and changed it completely and . . . I’ll leave you with a quote.

The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

Mark Twain

– Following the Equator