This essay ran here on March 7, 2015 so every reference to "yesterday" is to 3/6/15. At one point in it, I mention that a comic book I did in 1993 is scheduled to have a hardcover collection (and maybe a new sequel). The reprint volume never came out and no sequel was produced though Sergio and I still want both to happen. Also, I should mention that the car I drive still has the license plate mentioned in the story.
I buy cleaning supplies for my home a year or so at a time. Yesterday, I decide it's time…and my car could also use fueling and washing. So I get the car fueled and washed, then I drive it to a shopping center, taking a ticket on my way into the lot. I park my car. I go into a Target store there. I select Lysol and generic Windex and Swiffer refills and laundry detergent and Oxi-Clean and trash bags and many other items. I push my cart up to a checkout lane where a cheery checker asks, "Do you need a parking validation?" I do…so I reach into my pocket to get my ticket —
— and it isn't there. The ticket, not my pocket.
Figuring it fell out when I pulled my shopping list out of that very pocket, I backtrack and search the aisles. I do not find it. I ask a lady who's stocking shelves in that area if she saw a lost parking ticket. She says no, then pulls out a walkie-talkie and calls the Customer Service desk and asks them if someone has turned one in. They check and tell her yes. Ah!
I walk over to the Customer Service desk and they tell me, yes, someone did turn in a lost parking ticket…a few days ago. The ticket is dated March 3. I figure out rather quickly that it is not mine and that a two-hour validation on it won't be of much help.
Well, I think, maybe mine is in my car or near it. I pay for my purchases and head for my car where, it turns out, there is no sign of the ticket. I load everything I bought into the trunk and then, Target receipt in hand, head for the Parking Office of this lot. I explain the situation and an attendant tells me that since I lost my ticket, I must pay full price, as if I've parked there all day. Full price is $10.00, which is ten bucks more than I'd pay if I had my ticket and it had been validated.
I explain to the gentleman that I just spent $251.00 at the Target store and show him my receipt. Doesn't that deserve a little consideration? Yes, it does. He considers it and tells me that since I lost my ticket, I must pay full price, as if I've parked there all day. "That will be ten dollars," he tells me.
I explain I have not been there all day. I have been there less than an hour. He tells me that this may be so but he has no proof of that. I ask him, "If I could prove I've been here less than an hour, would you let me go without paying?" He says he would but, of course, there is no conceivable way to prove this.
I pull out my receipt from the car wash and show him that it is time-stamped 55 minutes before. It also has my car's license plate info printed on it. "As you can see," I tell him, "I was in a car wash having this car washed 55 minutes ago. The car wash is five to ten minutes away from here so the longest I could possibly have been here is 50 minutes." I tell him he can come with me up to the third parking level if he doubts me to check my car's license plate and its cleanliness.
The man, well aware he has just been Perry Masoned to within an inch of his life, thinks for a moment, then tells me I will have to talk to his boss. He phones this person to come over from another office. In five minutes, I am explaining the whole matter to the boss.
I say, "I'm a very good customer, the kind you want to encourage to come back to this shopping center and shop. I just spent $251.00 at the Target store. Why don't you just let me exit for the price I would be paying if I hadn't lost my ticket, which is zero?"
The boss mulls it over for a few moments, then tells me that since I lost my ticket, I must pay full price, as if I've parked there all day. "That will be ten dollars," he tells me.
I sigh. I am reaching for my wallet when he looks again at the receipt from the car wash. He asks, "What is MAGNOR?" I tell him that's my license plate.
He says, "I remember a comic book called Magnor. It was done by the guys who do Groo the Wanderer."
In 1993, Sergio Aragonés and I were far enough ahead on Groo that we did a mini-series about a super-hero we named Magnor. At about the same time, and certainly not because of what I was paid on Magnor, I bought a new car. On a whim, and figuring wrongly that Magnor would be around for a long time, I got that as my personalized license plate. Many thousands of miles later when I traded in that car and got a new one, I transferred the plate over and it adorns the auto I now drive.
The comic has been outta print for a long time, although it's scheduled for a hardcover collection (and maybe a new sequel) next year. Since it was last published, I have spent much of my life explaining to people in parking lots who ask what "Magnor" is. Standing there in the lot of this particular shopping center, I am amazed. I have found the one person alive, with the possible but not probable exception of Sergio, who remembers that comic.
I tell him I am indeed one of the guys who does Groo the Wanderer. He is delighted to meet me and to tell me he has "almost every issue of Groo" and for some reason, he also feels the need to tell me that though he loves Groo, his favorite comic book is DC's Secret Six by Gail Simone. He spends a considerable amount of time telling me how wonderful it is.
Attention, Gail Simone: I will send you the location of this shopping center. If you ever go there and lose your parking ticket, do not panic. The parking lot boss not only will not charge you full price, he may even give you your choice of any car in the place.
What he gives me is a free ticket to get out. Some days are better than others and this, my friends, was one of them. Ten bucks is ten bucks and by saving it, I think I just doubled my lifetime income from the Magnor comic book.