A few more days, please:

On May 20 I looked at the parking pass the hotel had given me. It was a form on which a clerk had written by hand that is was good until May 20. But I was staying to the 23rd! With a sinking heart I speculated why my pass was not good through the 23rd: Other guests had spoken of weekend parking permission problems. I went off to the desk expecting to be told to park my care elsewhere somehow.

When I showed my pass to the clerk, she said “I can fix that,” drew a dark 3 over the zero and handed it back to me. I looked dumbly at the handwriting, which now read “May 23”, and thought Gee, I could have done that myself.