VIOLA!

Strong Hospital has instituted automated fee-collection for their parking-garage.
The way it used to work was a person-free machine issued you a time-stamped ticket as you entered.
If you had a doctor’s appointment, or other appointment, their office would issue you a parking voucher.
Then on exit you’d hand everything to an attendant in a booth, and they’d tell you what you owed.
A parking voucher might get your amount due down to a dollar. Without one it was two dollars or more.
They still have that, but now they also have automated parking fee collection in the hospital lobby.
Rochester General had it too, but it was in the garage.
You were on-your-own.
The object of the game was escape from the garage.
Strong had an attendant.
I’ve always been attracted to these sort of gizmos; e.g. computerized sub-ordering, the U-Scans at Canandaigua Tops.
I managed to figure out the automated parking fee collection at Rochester General, so I faced the Strong gizmo.
“Insert ticket-stub here.”
“Hold it!” the attendant said. “Face up; align the arrow.”
“Machine working;” seconds pass — “Five dollars.”
“Holy mackerel,” I cried.
“Now insert your yellow parking voucher,” the attendant said.
“One dollar,” the machine flashed. (Visions of the slots at Turning Stone.)
There were slots for your credit-card, and also cash.
I took a dollar-bill out of my wallet, and in the slot it went.
Back out came my parking-ticket.
“Now, just put that ticket in the machine at the exit, and the gate goes up.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “All the exits have manned ticket-booths.”
“Not the lane to the left, sir,” he said. “That lane is unmanned. Just insert your ticket in the machine.”
Okay, gingerly approach exit, and keep to the left.
Insert ticket in machine, and viola! The gate swings up.

• “Strong Hospital” is a large hospital in the southeast of Rochester. “Rochester General” is a large hospital in the northeast of Rochester. The two are the largest hospitals in the city of Rochester.
• “Computerized sub-ordering” is to order your submarine sandwich with a computer touch-screen which prints your completed order on a small ticket which a clerk then fills.
• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua. —They have “U-Scan” machines, whereby you can check out your order yourself. It scans the bar-code on items, and then takes your payment.
• “Turning Stone” is a large gambling casino between Syracuse and Rochester.