Geary Mall Garage

So let's be real. I haven't yelped in awhile. A long while. But today I had to make an exception, because today I contemplated some GTA-style antics in the name of a dollar.

Let's set the stage, shall we? It's a busy, rainy Christmas Eve Eve along Geary Boulevard. I have a sick 8-month old in the back of my car, I'm not feeling too well myself, and I've got a few last-minute errands to run.

The only reason I even contemplate pulling into this piss-laden excuse for a parking structure is because I don't want to pull babes in and out of the car in the rain. My mistake. I pull in, and drive up. There's only one level of covered parking (not two like I thought) and--of course--there are no spots. So I drive back down.

I go to hand dude my ticket, explaining that I didn't even park and about to ask if he might forgive us the dollar when he flashes me this smug grin that tells me he's not going to consider ANY sort of leniency and asks me "What's the reason?" I don't know why this question struck me as so offensive, maybe it was just the way he asked it, but I told him I'd changed my mind--that the only reason I'd pulled into the lot at all was so that I could take my SICK baby in and out of the car out of the rain. Smug smile growing, he tells me I should have told him that at the beginning (because clearly folks make it a habit of chatting up their parking plans with the attendant when taking their ticket from an automated machine.) Cue super-predictable Hollywood line--he says it's not his problem.

All the while I'm getting heated. He's eating into my kid's very brief wake-time window, we've got last-minute shopping to do, and this self-important dickweed is embracing every ounce of power this little glass box affords him.

Should I have just handed over the dollar at this point and called it a day? Yes. But I didn't. Instead I contemplate gunning it and taking out the bar like they do in the movies. But I'm poor and a realist. Chances are there were cameras, and not the ones that'd be catching my good side as I said something witty and gunned it, but the kind they'd use as evidence in a court of law--years later--as they sued me for damages. So I do the next best thing--I throw it in park and call the parking lot company.

I know, I'm not proud, and if you were in the suv stuck behind me, I'm sorry--it was a brief moment of crazy. It makes sense that the guy that picked up, claiming to be the manager, would hire said smug dickweed. (In case you're not super good at reading between the lines, it's because this guy was a dill hole too.) He claims there are no in-and-out privileges (not what I was trying to do), says there are signs posted everywhere (true, there are signs everywhere but none I could find about anything that pertained to this situation), and then spews some phony bullshit about some City law that requires/allows lot owners to collect on every ticket printed...yadda yadda yadda...

Moral of the story, I paid the dollar, parked on the street, and that lot is now dead to me.

Eff you, lot.

WARNING! DO NOT COME HERE!!

They close the garage earlier than listed, and demand hundreds of dollars in cash from you for having to reopen the garage to get your car out. Do NOT COME HERE!! They lock your car in the garage earlier than what is posted on the signs when you drive in to then confront you and demand cash!!

During covid times, did not update their signs in front of the garage. Therefore my husband and I were locked out of our own car on our wedding anniversary till the next day.

I've never considered it a "mall" so much as a Walgreens x Ross x Domino's. Of the three, I only ever utilize the Walgreens. But this trio is more useful to me than a KFC x Taco Bell would be here, so thanks.

This garage is convenient and in the heart of the busy Geary shopping corridor. It costs just about as much as a meter so why not. Usually friendly cashier.