Greektown or Marty Get Your Gun

On Saturdays the Mr. and I usually have lunch at Panera and then do our weekend errands together. Well, we were tired of Panera and having a bit of a bicker over where we should eat. I dared him to go to Greektown. For those out-of-towners out there, Greektown is a small area in downtown Detroit populated with fabulous Greek restaurants. The Mr. does not like to go downtown. He is a'skeerd.
Taking my dare, Dean hopped on the freeway and we headed for The D. I suggested that we park elsewhere and ride the People Mover (Detroit's version of Chicago's El). So he got off the freeway and headed for the only slightly familiar area of town, the Comerica Park area where he spends at least 3 or 4 evenings a summer watching the Tigers. There is an underground parking system throughout Detroit. We decided to park there, hop on the People Mover and take the scenic route to Greektown. We were being very adventurous.
So we drove down the ramp to the underground garage. This is where the little machine spits out a ticket that you will use as you exit to find out how much you will pay. Just as the machine produces our ticket, some guy comes running over, gets between us and the machine and takes our ticket. And he says this, "That'll be $10." My sweet Mr. pulls out a ten and hands it to him before I can say anything. So now the man has our parking ticket and our money and we are under the D. I told the guy to give us our ticket so we could pay as we leave and he says, no. He keeps the ticket. I argue a bit and he walks away to get us a "receipt." I say, "You know this guy is scamming you." The Mr. is looking anxious at this point.
The man comes back to tell us, "The girl that does the receipts went to the store. Don't worry. We'll be here when you get back."
So I lean across and say, "Give us our money back. We're not parking here, just let us out the exit." Well, the Mr. and the man reach some kind of agreement wherein we get a hand-written receipt and we will park. The man gets to keep our ticket and our money.
We hop on the People Mover and by the time we get off at Greektown, I've finally convinced the Mr. that we have been ripped off and I have him terrified at the prospect of attempting to get our car out of the garage with no ticket to prove that we actually paid in the first place. I regaled him with a few scenarios of auto theft and slashed tires just to make it more interesting.
After a delicious lunch we got back on the People Mover with great concern. We returned to the park under which our car is parked. To enter the garage, one must go through a door into this plexiglass structure and take stairs down into the garage proper. The door is locked. We walked to another entrance, locked. And here's your sign. Literally. PUBLIC PARKING GARAGE OPEN MONDAY-FRIDAY. CLOSED SATURDAY AND SUNDAY. Did I mention it was Saturday. Oh dear.
Now the Mr. is very anxious, and so am I. Luckily at this point, Grady from Sanford and Son pulled up. We tell him what seems to have happened. He says, "Well you're not supposed to fall for that." And then he drove away.
We called our friend Marty who is a very manly unanxious man and also a Wayne County Sheriff whom we knew to be working at that very moment at the downtown jail. He felt we would probably be able to simply walk down into the garage via the vehicle exit ramp and get our car. We were both concerned about the wisdom of this idea being that a gang of banditos surely awaited us with socks full of pennies with which to jack us up.
Marty felt sorry for us, poor pitiful people that we are. He loves us and so he does not make fun of us to our faces. What he said to his sheriff friends might be another story. To the Mr. he said, "Go have a cup of coffee. I get off work in an hour and then I"ll come there and get your car out for you." This was a relief. And it also made me mad. I did not want to wait an hour. I want my car back.
So whilst the Mr. continues to talk with Marty, I took my pepper spray out of my purse and headed down the vehicle exit ramp. The Mr. called out, "What are you doing?".
"I'm going to get my freaking car." says I.
So he decided that he would go with me. And down into the cavern we went. And there were the banditos. And there was our car. "Unlock it now with the remote." I told the Mr. It's a good thing for us I am a pretend undercover secret agent so I know all the tricks. I figure, I'll blind 'em while Dean starts up the car and we'll crash through the gate.
The banditos must've been scared by the menacing look in my eye because they did not even look at us but pretended to be carefree by singing and cracking wise.
We got in the car and pulled up the gate. It looked like we were gonna have to crash the gate doing 98, so I said let them truckers roll; 10-4. (That's a little 70s musical throwback for ya.)
Then a large African American woman hollered out, "Hold on!"
She came over as I got my pepper spray at the ready. She leaned over. She pulled the panel off the gate and jimmied something causing the gate to rise. And we drove away quickly.
Paying criminals to park illegally in the Detroit underground parking system, $10.
Getting away alive, priceless.
Next week we're eating at Panera.

1 Chronicles 11:15 Three of the thirty chiefs came down to David to the rock at the cave of Adullam, while a band of Philistines was encamped in the Valley of Rephaim.