Thursday, March 20, 2008

Movin' On Up

Due to the overwhelming volume of emails I received after not posting last Friday night, I suppose I can ‘fess up to what I was doing. (Sure, most of the emails were the usual spam, but I think it adds drama to the post. No?)

I was moving. Normally I come home and lay perfectly still, but I decided to incorporate motion into my evening. That was a joke. Get it? Moving? Nevermind.

It wasn’t my home abode that I was moving, but my office. Well, all the contents of my office since moving the physical office would be rather inefficient as well as leave a conspicuous gap in the old building structure. It would also be rather rude seeing as the new management company built out a new space for us.

Due to my meticulous planning (or rather following the meticulous notes from the girl that set up the last move) it was rather uneventful, although I did meet a guy that knew my dad better than I do. Apparently he’s still alive, loves to golf and hasn’t retired yet.

My new office overlooks the top level of a garage in downtown Chicago. Yep, you need to be a bigshot to get view like that. Not like those putzes that have to stare at the boring water of Lake Michigan or the boring old skyline. I was out of the office Monday, but on Tuesday I didn’t get a whole lot of work done because I was fascinated by the parking operations.

You see, when I get to work it looks like this:

By late morning it fills up and looks like this, and the fun begins:

They send a couple valet guys up there and start double parking the cars, turning the top level into a giant game of Tetris that gets increasingly complex, especially when people who are blocked in decide they want to leave in their own car.

I figured I would never get anything done, eventually design a new and improved parking algorithm on the back of a Jimmy John’s napkin, build my own garage, franchise, and soon become America's Urban Parking King and find myself on the cover of Forbes magazine in an expensive suit and a reflective vest passing out valet tickets with a big smile on my face in an obviously staged photo shoot. Unfortunately, I lost interest by Wednesday and went back to my quest to retire early by misappropriating company assets to make illegal copies of The Moosewood Restaurant Cookbook that I can sell under the cover of my caricature booth at flea markets around the Midwest.

It’s just crazy enough to work.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

want to leave in their own car What?! No free upgrade if you are inconvienced by the double parking? And how about selling extra services to the poor souls who have to park up there in the elements? Like call ahead and have the car already defrosted in the winter, or cooled in the summer? I still think you should rethink the America's Urban Parking King idea. I see promise here.

Look out that window again, Sid ...

Anonymous said...

That Moosewood cookbook IS pretty good. Try making the Onion and Feta Risotto. YUM!!

You're plans for flea market riches are superb but you may be missing the most lucrative items for selling.

You know.

Broken furniture.

Tequila.

Maybe even some skanky Romanian hookers/strippers...

AMAI said...

I'm looking forward to the weekender edition of this blog entry. I want to compare the top floor garage usage on a Sunday afternoon. I'm sure you'll be in on the weekend, Sid, since you need to make up for wasting half the week.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'm a bit fixated on the Moosewood Cookbook reference too...