The Office: An Overview

  Getting there:   Sometimes it's simple.  More often it's not.  Today was not.  The very limited parking spaces in the lot opposite to the Hospital are not only all filled, but there are 2 vehicles lurking there, evidently waiting for others to leave.  I don't even pull into that lot because it's a dead-end and turning around usually impossible, and backing out always risky, what with elderly and or sickly drivers. Many of those few spots are reserved for physicians anyway.  There is a new lot for the Samaritan Arts offices on the side facing the Parking Garage, with somewhat more spaces, but today they are all taken also.
    So into the Parking Garage I go.  I'm probably not the most expert driver, and I may be a little biased by now, but it seems that the entrance to this particular garage is especially problematic, at least compared to the others I've driven into.  The access is a hard right turn onto the ramp, which seems quite narrow.  Then the search for a spot begins. I spot an open space and start to pull in but then see a sign that reads physicians only.  Can't do that.  Don't want to be towed. I drive through a darkened tunnel of parked cars, take the next left, and see another open space.  I drive into it this time, before I read a different sign that says that nobody is ever permitted to park in this space, ever.  So I drive further and spot an area of handicapped spaces.  I park there, and apply my permit tag. (I did not say it is contraband.)
    I walk down the winding ramp, being careful to note any oncoming or departing  vehicles.  Their drivers of necessity tend to be somewhat distracted or irritated, either searching for a parking spot or looking for an exit. On my return trip, walking toward my car, a truck pulled up beside me and the driver, a man slightly on the north side of middle age, asked me where he should go to try to park. I told him to just keep driving upwards.  He said he'd been doing that and it just circled him back around.  I told him well, I'd parked here, which was a handicapped area. He said, before driving off, "And you got away with it."   I suppose he thought I wasn't handicapped.
   Down the rampway, through the construction site, and across both the aforementioned parking lots brought me to the Office Building. The office is vast. and despite  recent major renovations, conveys  a dreary, worn-out ambience.  The atmosphere reflects the attitude of the patients (More later--thinking about it is putting me to sleep.