Downtown robbery
Friday, May 23rd, 2008I was robbed yesterday. The perp didn’t have a gun or a knife, but a piece of pavement roughly the size of my vehicle in good proximity to where I needed to go, Brookfield Place, for a spa treatment. A little “me” time. A semi-pricey girlie episode. You get the idea.
My favourite esthetician has moved locations. She used to be in Yorkville. But she was the reason I went there and when she moved to Front Street, I followed, and this is only the second time I’ve been to see her there. The first time, I took the subway. Cost: about $6. This time I decided to drive and chose a parking lot a couple of blocks away to force myself to walk a little further. Besides, I was a bit early, and I don’t like to rush my pal by sitting in the waiting room, bored out of my mind.
So I parked and - dopey me! - I assumed that it was the same underground parking gouge - I mean garage - that I’m used to in this city; $3 per half hour or less, blah blah. I returned to my vehicle less than an hour later and used my credit card to exit, as I had when I entered. The little machine spit out my receipt. Smack me in the face with a wet mackerel: $25. Twenty-five dollars! For less than an hour! Even by Toronto standards, that is absolutely outrageous.
Depending on where we tape my parts for the TV show Whatever Happened To, I can sometimes pay up to $16 to park for the 90 minutes or so. That’s ridiculous. But $25 for under an hour is just plain old sick and I don’t mean that in the new, hip way the kids are using the word “sick.” I mean ill, ailing, disgusting. Greed is alive and well and putting its grubby hand in my pocket.
