Primal Sneeze

I pulled into the red carpark of the Whitewater shopping centre at lunchtime yesterday. There is a green car park too, but I decided that my green car might be difficult to find in that one.

Just as I got out of the car the red carpark became the black one. A power cut. Lovely! Now my car would be even harder to find. Arms outstretched, I made my way to the stairwell and climbed 4 or 5 flights to the bridge linking to the shopping centre. Two thoughts crossed my mind:
Why, if I had driven up into a multi-storey carpark, was I still climbing? It seems they built the high-rise carpark in a hole making it a low-rise.
Why were none of the floors I passed signed? They did have up and down arrows telling you what was above or below you but not where you were. And no, not what was exactly above, just that it was above.

By peering out from the stairwell at each floor I finally found the one with the bridge and made my way into the centre. Another thought: Would there be a couple of hysterical blondes stuck half-way up an escalator?

This I was denied. Maybe the security team had helped them down already.

But I was to be compensated tenfold.

The generators had kicked in so at least the shops (and their tills) were all brightly lit. Passing the customer services desk I overheard a customer being told by one of the girls that it would be 3 hours before power was restored, that the generators were not for the carpark and that she could not validate parking tickets. She was so, so, so sorry but there was really nothing she could do. The beaming smile and compassionate voice belied the attitude of “listen, sucker, I’m stuck here until 5:30 putting up with your whinging, so I couldn’t give a tuppenny fcuk. It’ll be restored long before I leave”.

Purchase made, I headed back to the bridge.

Little miss tuppenny fcuk’s message had spread and a crowd stood staring longingly at the lifeless ticket validation machine. One man paced back and forth telling anyone who would listen that he had to be back at work by 2.

I gathered my own team of ‘anyone who would listen’ and tried to explain that
a) even if they got their ticket validated the exit barriers were electrically powered too so it wouldn’t achieve anything and
b) given the circumstances, he likelihood was that the barriers had been manually lifted and we could drive out for free.

Of the 20 or so ‘anyone who would listen’s’, only one did. I helped her carry her shopping down the stairs and we were waved through the open barriers with an apology from a security guy for any inconvenience caused. The others headed back to the shops and foodcourts to wait it out (and spend more).

Little miss tuppenny fcuk will probably get a raise for increasing revenue.