No Exit

"Ma! What happened? I thought you'd be home by now."
"Me, too."
"Did you get lost?"
"Kinda."
"Where?"
"In the parking lot."
"No."
"Sadly, yes."
"Who gets lost in a parking lot?"
"Me."
"Why?"
"They wouldn't let me out."
"What'd you do?"
"You assume I did something?"
"Kinda."
"I did nothing, Son."
"Come on, Ma. You did something."
"I tried to leave."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"Walk me through it."
"I went down the ramp to the ground level."
"Go on. This is riveting."
"Hang on to your tallis, honey, it gets better."
"I'll be the judge of that."

"At what I think is the exit, the mechanical arm thingie just goes up. I figure, wow, that was easy. I didn't even have to pay. They must know I'm a celebrity."
"You're not a celebrity, Ma!"
"How dare you."
"Cut to the chase, Ma. I'm in the middle of Grand Theft Auto: Sherman Oaks."
"It's a trick. Once I drive outside, I have to go through another thingie, where you insert the ticket."
"Is this where the story gets good?"
"This is where your mother loses her mind and gets carted away to the Funny Farm, where you visit her on weekends and bring bagels and lox."
"So what happened? I'm hooked now."
"What happened was nothing. The little box won't take my ticket. I put the ticket in. It spits it out. I put the credit card in. Bupkis. I press the intercom thingie. I'm yelling, 'Hello! Hello?! I can't get out!' Nothing. No one cares. I'm in this alone. It's me versus some anonymous god-like force that's got it in for me. I back up, I go to another exit. Somehow I'm in a giant business park situation in Pasadena. I've gone from a simple parking lot directly to purgatory. And now it's a 'Twilight Zone' episode. It's a Fellini movie. It's Bunuel. It's Jean Paul Sartre. There is no exit. I can't leave. So I try again. I drive here, I drive there. There's no escape. And I'm starting to take it personally."
"You?"
"Well, I'm the only one it's happening to, Mr. Smarty Face."
"Then what?"
"Then I start throwing myself at the mercy of anonymous men."
"Ma! I thought you were going to stop doing that."
"I needed help! I'm 35 minutes into this nightmare. So I'm yelling, 'Excuse me! How do I get out of here?' Until finally, a nice man takes pity on me. He's pushing the intercom and for him, someone responds. Not for me. For him."
"So?"
"So the intercom man tells me to put the ticket in and start over. I say, in my saddest, most desperate and whiny voice, 'I tried that, sir.'"
"You said, 'sir'?"
"No. It just sounds better. 'Sir, can you please help me?'"
"Now you're British."
"I'm  Cockney. I'm Oliver. ''Please sir, can I have some part of my sanity back? Will you please let me out of here?' The arm goes up, I never pay a cent, and I'm out of there, bitches."
"That's quite a story, Ma."
"I thought I'd never get out of there alive."
"I'm glad you did."
"Me, too."
"So what's for dinner?"
"I'm going to pretend you didn't just ask me that."