My nephew and I went to a football game yesterday at Yankee Stadium. It had been years since the last visit there. While following an old path to a parking lot we found that things had changed. No parking in this lot anymore. So down the block we went. Not far down the road we saw a sign for event parking. We took a quick left at the light, and moved up a type of driveway to a parking garage which serves some big box stores like Home Depot, Target, etc. After grabbing a ticket from the entrance machine, in we went. Maybe we drove about quarter mile, or so, into the garage. The path took us up one of about four or five levels, and across a pretty big parking lot. There were plenty of spots on the other side of lot, so we used one, walked down the stairs, and head over to the stadium.
After the game we returned to find a lot more cars in the lot than before. Time to join the traditional post event exodus jam. The directions to the exit were a bit confusing although in short order we were heading for one. Before you know it we are bumper to bumper with any number of vehicles coming from a number of different directions. We’re still about a quarter mile in, the now filled down ramp has a waiting line of five or six vehicles just to reach, and it is getting tight. The other people in the line we are trying to enter the ramp are edging and wedging for every inch of space. It appears as though our fellow motorists are not feeling hospitable, and it kind of shows. They don’t want to let anyone in. I start looking around, and notice another exit sign down to our left a hundred yards or so. There are no cars down there to be seen. I say to my nephew, “What do you think?” He indicates that he thinks we should stay in line. In the next four or five minutes we move not one inch. Almost no one else in this jam moved either; barely an inch. “Ah, what have we got to lose? Let’s see what’s down there at that other sign.”
We pull free of the lemming line, and move into an unpopulated parking lot. At the end of the row there’s an exit sign with an arrow pointing to the right. The narrow right hairpin turn is at the top of a ramp going down. A slow negotiation of the hairpin, and down we go. At the bottom of the reasonably narrow ramp the driveway turns slightly to the right. We’re the only vehicle on the path which proceeds straight across a parking garage floor littered with random parked cars. There’s a stop sign to stop at, but no cars coming. The empty path continues for couple hundred more feet, then turns to the right. After the turn we get our choice. There are two gated autopay lanes to the right, and one manned post to the left. Each lane has two or three vehicles waiting in line to leave. We use the manned post, pay the fee, wish the attendant a happy new year, and drive out onto the road out of there.
Most likely we would still be in that, who knows how long, lemming line, if it had not been for the discourteous wedging of the other motorists pinching people off from entering the line to perpetual ponder and wait. Our lemming capacities are strong too. It’s a lucky thing to have noticed another option, glad for that. Let’s just hope that as different versions of delay happen from day to day that we keep our wits about us, not get too jammed up with what appears to be the attitude of others, and look for a way clear. Let’s face it, it’s not unusual to exclaim at times of modern world frustration, “I’m freakin out of here!”