Fourinarow.net

After not attending mass on Sunday, we decided to do the tourist thing and visit Navy Pier. We wanted to do something fun with the kids, so we headed east toward the city.

We arrived in the vicinity of Navy Pier and discovered that Lallapazooza was going on. This is like a modern-day Woodstock, so we immediately dismissed it. Not the place for four young children.  We were already downtown, though, so we thought we’d park and walk along the Magnificent Mile instead.

The streets were full of cars, so we pulled into the first parking garage we saw. $13 was the “discounted” rate for the weekend. We pulled in, took a ticket, and proceeded up the ramp, looking for a parking spot. As we crept along, we discussed whether parking in the garage was worth the money.

Suddenly Dan stopped. Simultaneously, I heard glass breaking. “Oh, shit,” Dan said.

“What?” I asked.

“I totally forgot about the box.”

“What box”? I asked.

“On the roof,” he said.

On the roof?!?  Ohhhhh.  That box.  It took me a minute to realize he was talking about the cargo carrier we had on the roof rack of the van. I, too, had forgotten it was there. Not only was it there, but it was taking out the lights in the parking garage.

For a moment, we sat there staring at each other in a panic. What to do?

Dan got out of the van to assess things and then told me we’d have to back down the ramp and pull out of the garage. The ceilings of the garage only got lower as you went up, so we had no choice. I started backing up while he guided.  And took out another light.

Shit.

We switched positions.  I guided him while he backed down the ramp.  I also directed all the incoming traffic around us.  Cars were constantly coming into the garage. It was embarrassing directing traffic around our family-van-with-the-roof-top-carrier in the too-small garage, but what can you do? (Really, though, when you have four small children, how embarrassed can you get anymore anyway?)

Slowly, we managed to back the van out of the garage. I think we took out a third light before we were finished, but we did it.

It cost us $6 and a lot of adrenaline to get out of there.  We found some (free) parking on the street not far from the garage and Dan went back to find someone to confess to.  (If you can’t let a broken frog go, you certainly can’t let broken lights go.  Especially when there are mounted cameras everywhere.)  Thankfully, the attendant told Dan not to worry about it - it was only a few light bulbs.

I guess Maddog hasn’t cornered the market on creative bulb destruction after all.