Oh my gosh, I forgot to do an episode today.

It’s 9.02 p.m.

when I pressed record, and I have to tuck my son in in three minutes because he’s negotiated 9.05 bedtime.

That means I gotta do this episode right now, and I really only have three minutes to do it, so I gotta talk extra fast.

And I already talk fast on this podcast, but today I gotta talk super, super fast, so let’s do it.

Here we go, here we go, here we go.

♪ Your Daily Lex ♪ I recall mentioning to you yesterday that I have a million topics to cover, and I was like, oh, I should pack them all into an episode.

Now I don’t remember any of them, but good news, I’m opening up a doc.

My note, where I have all these things.

So, I went to a Ben Folds concert this weekend.

It was at the same theater where I saw Penn & Teller a week or two prior, and the State Theater in New Jersey.

And it’s a lovely theater.

This time I was in the orchestra.

Last time I sat in the balcony, and the orchestra had slightly more room between each row of seats, which meant that my legs didn’t go completely numb.

Many times when I go to a theater, the seats are not designed for people of my height.

Particularly, most of my height is in my legs.

Like, I’m a normal height sitter.

When I sit on the same height as everybody else, when I stand, I’m much taller.

And it’s a leg length thing, so my knees are always jammed against the seat in front of me.

But here, there was a slight gap before the row in front of me, which was great.

And Ben Folds was great.

It was actually a very unusual experience for me at the concert, because I love Ben Folds.

I’ve seen him in concert many times, but I was really moved at this time.

It was just him, I don’t know, but he was making me want to write songs.

He was making me feel feelings, singing songs I already know.

He’d tell like stories about them.

He was being funny and entertaining, but like, I really felt moved by the concert in a way that I typically don’t think of my feeling at any concert.

I don’t know, hard to explain.

But I really was moved by him.

I had parked in a parking garage.

A fine place to park, by the way.

And you know, there’s signs everywhere in this parking garage.

Take your ticket with you, because you have to pay at the machines before you leave.

When we saw up in the teller, there was a paper sign printed out on a computer, oh, probably on a printer, that said in the window where the only two machines are for paying, which had these long lines from all the exiting concert goers, you can also pay at the exit with a credit card.

Now that runs in direct contrast to what every sign says around the parking garage, including all the permanent signage.

And as you drive through it, it’s painted everywhere.

Like, make sure you’ve already paid.

But so I saw this, not handwritten, but this homemade, this handmade sign, home printed sign that said you can also pay at the exit.

So when we saw up at the teller, I was like, family, let’s go.

And my family was terrified.

But we did it.

We went up to the car, which was on the fifth floor, and we drove out, and we got to the exit, and they were like, yeah, you can just pay now.

We’ll run your card for you.

And there was people there manning each of the exit stations, personning each of the exit stations, exit gate things, and they ran our card.

Now, they complained about our ticket.

They said that our parking ticket was the wrong one, and so they were gonna have to charge us full price, but it was the right one, and we worked it out slowly.

Making people behind us very annoyed.

So when I went to see Ben Folds, I said the same thing to my buddy Andy, who I’d gone to the show with.

I was like, look, we’re gonna wait and see what these signs say.

Because if that sign is up again that says we can pay at the exit, let’s do that.

And he’s like, you can’t pay at the exit.

Every sign says you have to, I’m like, let’s just try.

And so we check, and that sign was up again.

So we went straight to the car, and you have to go by this long line of people waiting for the pay for parking machines to get to the elevator.

You’re like, excuse me, I’m just going to the elevator, I’m just going to the elevator.

Why everybody doesn’t just go to the elevator is beyond me.

So we make our way up to the car.

It’s again on the fifth floor, which made it easier to remember, because now I know I park on the fifth floor of that garage.

We make our way to the exit.

There’s nobody staffing the exits this time, and I was thinking to myself, how did they run the card last time?

And I thought, you know, they put it in the machine.

That’s what they did, so it’s fine.

They put it in the same parking machine that I’m going to.

I don’t know why this place says you have to pay before you exit, because clearly you don’t have to pay before you exit.

I get up to the machine, and indeed, there’s a place to run your card.

But it says, you know, put your ticket here, and there’s signs all over this machine.

I really should have taken a photo.

There’s signs all over the machine that say, don’t put your ticket here, because there’s a million spots on the machine that look like it’s where you should put your ticket that are not where you should put your ticket.

In fact, it scans your ticket with infrared.

But it looks like you’re supposed to slide it into one slot, aha, there’s a credit card slot.

So I swipe my card, or I put my card under the IR thing, and then I put my credit card in.

But it’s like not ready for my credit card.

And I was like, uh-oh.

And then I just sat there and waited for a minute while it was thinking, it was processing ticket.

Processing, processing, processing.

I think if I had simply paid it already, it would have opened, and it wouldn’t have taken so long.

But instead, it realized, oh, you still have to pay.

And then it said, okay, now you can put your card in.

So I go to put my card in.

It’s like, invalid card.

It’s not an invalid card, it’s a valid card.

But I knew immediately what had happened.

I knew it immediately was likely to happen.

It had at least a 50% chance, but in practice, greater than 50% chance.

I don’t know about you, but I really struggle to read those 2D graphics that attempt to indicate to you which way to put your credit card.

They like show a bend in the card.

They show which side the magnetic stripe is on and which side it isn’t.

Like, they attempt to do all those things.

But I can never really read them.

So of course, I put the card in backwards.

I flipped it around, and then it worked just fine.

Paid, left the parking lot.

You don’t have to prepay at that parking lot.

If you park in that parking garage that’s near State Theater in New Jersey, don’t worry about it, just pay and go.

It’s fine, you can pay when you exit, whatever.

But those things are hard.

I’m sure I’m not alone.

Please reassure me on Mastodon, or iMessage, or email me, lex.lexfreeman.com.

Please assure me I’m not the only one who struggles with reading the iconography of which way to slide a credit card.

Also, could we just standardize and do it in one direction?

Or could we make it like USB-C ports and Lightning ports and have them work both ways?

Come on, it’s 2023.

Lex.