You know how people complain about airports?
The meals? The seats? The attendants?
Well, I'm not bragging, but living in Malaysia and
getting MAS airlines as our major choice,
so far we haven't had any of those problems.
Until today.
It wasn't the plane.
It was the parking. At the airport.
Oh yeah.
My Dad was finished cancelling some tickets
and as we got back in the car, we keep on
seeing these signs that go
AUTOPARK
BEFORE CLAIMING YOUR VEHICLE PLEASE MAKE YOUR PAYMENT
And we keep on asking,
"WHERE IS THIS PLACE WHERE WE NEED TO PAY?"
"WHAT IS AUTOPARKING?"
"HOW DO WE GET OUT OF HERE???"
So my Dad decided I should go out and ask someone in the airport, handing me the ticket and 10 ringgit.
"If there is no payment counter in there, then these people are seriously stupid."
I went out with my brother and we kind of looked around the bottom floor of the airport
like complete idiots and I asked my brother to ask the security guard but he kept ignoring me
because I know he did not want to ask that.
Instead I asked him to ask a Maybank person.
Even the Maybank Person didn't know.
I was walking past some of the shops and not seeing any payment counters,
I was completely exasperated enough by
1. not finding the payment counter
2. upset that we would be stuck in the airport forever like Tom Hanks in The Terminal
that was based on a true story which I can't remember who exactly but if you've seen the movie, you get it.
3. my brother is so unreliable (like that surprised me)
4. I was getting hungry.
I stalked up to the Hospitatily Center (I mean, COME ON)
and I asked ever so politely, "Excuse me, do you know where to pay for the parking outside?"
And the women (the Hospitality Center inside was 'owned' by Sutera Harbour, go figure)
began to direct me that it was outside and it was "that gray box outside, near the entrance."
Of course. Why didn't I think of that?
Because of course every grey box I see is an autopark payment counter!
---In my defense, I have NEVER been exposed to the way of autoparking, obviously enough.---
So I went outside, my brother tailing behind me like a burly bodyguard
and approached an object that passed of as "a grey box" and tentively looked at the other side.
OH MY GOSH THEY ASKED PLEASE INSERT TICKET
I was waving down my Dad as he and my other brother,
after parking the car and came to check up on our progress,
quite pleased that I found the booth.
I let an older man use it first because I was afraid it didn't give change.
(We were only there 10 minutes tops.)
I saw the man slipped in his ticket, then a 10 ringgit in it
and *plunk plunk* goes the change pocket.
He took it and went to his merry way.
I was quite dubious by this new relevation of technology in our town.
When all of us assembled, I excitedly slipped in the ticket
and hesitantly slipped in the 10 ringgit (it was slightly crinkled)
and our change was RM8.50
Are they going to give us that in coins?
No! It didn't.
On the other side of the coin pocket is the paper money pocket
and there was our change!
I might sound a little excited here but wow, this booth has
the intelligence of an ATM machine!
But then how are they suppose to know that we payed?
When we finally drove off to the exit, I saw a similar grey machine
and I was like, "there's one RIGHT THERE!"
But it wasn't the same. Here's where'd you put the ticket.
No wonder they spit it back out from the machine earlier.
Dad put the payed ticket in the machine.
It swooped it in and never back out.
And the bargate in front went 90 degrees.
"So, where do we go now?" Dad asked.
In a not-so-simultaneous chorus, "Eat."
the booth was slightly on the left side of this place, outside
mischievous brother trying to hide from me and think I didn't know!
