Grocery shopping went like a dream.

Have you ever had a real life experience that was so utterly bizarre that you thought it might have been one of those annoying dreams… like the one where you’re stuck in a warehouse full of tinned goods and just can’t find the exit… Just me then?

So today I go to Claremont Pick and Pay to do some grocery shopping.

• The first level of parking is full… I drove around twice.
• The second parking level is full. It’s not marked very well so I almost found myself stuck in a queue to exit.
• The third parking level, which I didn’t know even existed, was full too… Everywhere there were people desperate for a parking spot.
• Eventually I find myself on the forth level waiting for a guy who turned out to be just dropping off his gym bag in his boot.
• Without exaggerating, by this stage I had spent about 15 minutes looking for parking and decided to just park my car near an entrance and wait for someone to leave.
• I waited about 3 minutes until a bay opened. I parked and headed to the nearby entrance.
• The lift didn’t indicate which level the shops were on so I took a gamble and pressed “G”.
• When the doors opened and I walked out, around a corner and realised I had done something stupid because I was basically inside a Virgin Active.
• At this point I’m like “Ok, I give up, I’ll just leave now and try this whole shopping thing another day”.
• So I head back to the lifts… Once inside I’m faced with buttons G through 9. I parked on P4. There are no P’s.
• I press 4 hoping that maybe that’ll be it.
• The elevator door opens into a swish office suite lobby.
• I feel like I’m in the twilight zone.
• Unsure of whether to go up or down I just randomly start pressing buttons.
• Over and over again the doors open and I’m faced with office suites… Now I’m wondering if perhaps, on that ground floor I’d re-entered into the wrong lift.
• A girl gets in and I ask her which floor is the “top level of parking”. She confidently tells me it’s 6, which is where she’s going, and so I confidently follow her…
• We exit the lift, turn right, she swipes a tag to open the door and I’m starting to get nervous… Relax, she assures me that there are stairs I can use to get onto the right level.
• We walk out onto a parking platform, she points out the stairs in the distance and starts walking away.
• About 3 seconds later I realise I am in the completely wrong fucking place. This is an entirely different parking garage in an entirely different side of the building.
• I turn back to note the locked, rfid tag protected, door separating me from freedom.
• The girl has disappeared and suddenly I need to pee.
• I walk over to the door and luckily a few seconds later it opens… I act cool. Me, no, I’m not lost… I slip through as the dude who totally realised I was lost walks to his car.
• I head back to the lifts. I ask another random woman where the parking is. She has a clue and asks me whether I mean the corporate parking or the public parking.
• My angel informs me that the level I am looking for is 2… I had already tried 3… so close.
• As we head down, the lift doors open on the fourth floor. Three people walk in. Making a total of 5. The doors won’t close and the Overload sign starts blinking.
• The most rotund of the guests exits making a comment about this lift being faulty… “Own it” I think to myself.
• Eventually the door on level 2 opens and I recognise the decor…. this was indeed where my car was… I turn right and exit into the familiar parking garage resolved to just go the fuck home.
• As I walk to my car I notice large writing on the wall. “<- Gym Lifts     Shopping/Trolley Lifts  ->”
• “I’ve come so far, why quit now?” I think to myself as I start walking randomly in the direction of the arrow to find the other set of lifts, which turn out to be about 200m around the corner.
• Eventually inside PnP I start shopping. This is about 40 minutes after arriving at the parking garage.
• I overhear a dude saying “Babes, Where are you?”.  “Where you left me” she replies… Typical guy says “Where?”… The girl, obviously losing her patience says “Jesus! In the next aisle!”…. a second passes before a random man replies “Jesus would never forsake you”. Everyone giggles except an old granny who for some reason is staring at me.
• I can’t find the sugar and ask a shelf packer. He motions that he’s deaf and doesn’t understand me. I, don’t ask how, happen to know the sign language sign for “sugar” and instinctively, before I can stop myself, sign it… The guy’s face lights up like he’s met an old friend and he takes me to the sugar. I sign the “thank you” sign and he signs the whole “it’s a pleasure” thing. At this point I’m basically waiting for the part in the dream where Natalie Portman needs my help to rescue the world.
• I pay and make my way to my car, carefully making sure that I pay for my parking ticket on the way because I just know how that would end… I would be the guy at the boom without a ticket and 5 cars behind me hooting and making comments about my mother.
• I get to my car. The parking lot is still madness and a very attractive gym bunny girl is parked waiting for an opening. She smiles at me like I’m about to rescue her world.
• I can’t find my keys… then I feel them (through my pants) in my back pocket… but for some reason every time I put my hand into my pocket, it is empty. I’m like SERIOUSLY starting to doubt my sanity at this point.
• So I can feel my keys but can’t get them out, so, through my pants, I molest my ass in an attempt to, through the fabric, locate my car key so that I can at least unlock the car (remotely) and start unpacking the trolley, biding myself some time to solve the “keys *inside* my pants” conundrum.
• Attractive gym bunny girl is staring at me while I appear to be having a stroke and pleasuring myself at the same time.
• The car unlocks and I start to unpack the trolley the whole time wondering how I am going to get the keys out from *inside* my pants without attractive gym bunny girl phoning the cops.
• I close the boot and run the trolley over to the trolley place. Still wondering how the fuck my keys are playing hide and seek with me.
• Trying my best to hide behind a pillar I reach into my back pocket again… I again reach the logical conclusion that I reached earlier. I MUST have more than one pocket, but I just cant find the opening to it.
• Eventually, after what seems like an hour of public indecency, I manage to get my hand into the TINY, *other*, pocket that contains my keys and triumphantly pull them out, trying hard to stop myself from making a point of showing them to attractive gym bunny so as to explain my recent retardation.
• I get into the car, pull out and drive around the rabbit warren than is the various levels of parking lots, cul de sacs, private parking zones etc, to find the exit.
• I end up in one of those narrow spirally ramps, heading downwards towards a boom, there are four cars in front of me, two behind me,  There is no “forgot my ticket” slipway and the car at the boom seems to be having a ticket problem. Minutes go by while I practice my breathing techniques.
• Eventually I get out of the mall… I feel triumphant, like a hero, returning home after an epic battle in a foreign land.

That is my story. Every ounce of it is true. I would not believe it either.