A vintage parking garage stairwell that tried to kill me.
I parked on the roof of the Walnut Creek Kaiser Permanente Hospital garage because it had the most space for my big-ass SUV. Instead of riding the elevator five floors to the ground I took the stairs as a low-league attempt to hit my 10,000 steps for the day. Every floor was divided into two mini-flights of stairs, so I bounded down to the halfway point, pivoted the other direction, bounded down again, pivoted, bounded, pivoted…and almost brained myself on the ceiling.
I’ve been extremely tall for a long time, and my spider-sense automagically keeps me from hitting my head on things, but my spider-sense assumes that ceilings are a constant height. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the staircase height was shrinking floor by floor! At the speed of my descent I could have injured myself en route to the hospital, which is funnier to think about now than when I was eyeball-to-support-beam with the ceiling.
When Kaiser built its Walnut Creek outpost in 1953 it was deemed “The Dream Hospital: The Last Word in Modern Design”, a fantastical concept that was completely tossed out when they clumsily erected the parking garage. To be fair, an “Alice in Wonderland-inspired twist on Being John Malkovich’s 7½ Floor low-ceiling offices” does not flow off the tongue quite as smoothly.
On my return to my car I took the elevator. Across from it was a poster that read “For your health, take the stairs”. Not on your life, Kaiser.