We parked how long?

When we flew out to sunny California a few weeks ago we used the "No Parking ticket to lose" credit card method to gate into the long-term lot. You just swipe your credit card going in and the gate opens and you are in like Flynn. A timer starts running on that card number and when you get home you just swipe the same card; Amex gets the charge and you are good to go.

Don't get ahead of me here even if you do know what's going to happen. I missed the card immediately; soon after we got to the airport we bought some lunch and the American Express card was not in its slot. I remembered taking it out, and sure enough Julie confirmed it was there by the computer in the guest room. She offered to bring it to me, but I assured her we wouldn't need it anytime soon and just drop it in the mail.

Bur somewhere between Fresno and Austin Mom made the connection between the card and the parking lot. Uh oh. We called Julie as soon as we hit the ground in Austin to get the number and expiration date and the little number they always ask for and set out to do battle with the parking attendant.

Which was no problem. She ran our license plate (which they record for every car into the lot) so she knew when we got there and worked out the bill, which we paid with Mom's Amex (it has different numbers, by the way) and she bid us a wonderful evening. And as we are leaving I asked, "Now this takes care of the charge accumulating on the card we badged in with, right?"

"What? You used a credit card to get in the lot? Uh-hunh, honey, the clock is still running on that sucker. You got to call this number in the daytime to get that stopped!"

So I did, and the nice gentleman took care of it easily and assured me that I was not the first dummy customer to lose his card. Have a nice day. Which I did, after that.

But I did check the Amex web-site for a couple of days, just to be sure.