One mistake offsets another

Not long ago, I had to visit a large health facility. It wasn't for me, I was just the chauffeur. When we arrived, the gate at the arrival printed me a ticket, which I would keep on me and then pay when we were ready to leave.

As soon as we parked, I took a photo of the pillar next to our car so we'd have no trouble finding it again once we were done. In my defence, it is a huge underground parking lot - 2 city blocks in size.

About an hour into the visit I fished in my pocket and realized that the parking stub was gone. I retraced my steps everywhere I had been, except for the underground parkade itself. I had no luck finding the stub.

I was informed that I would need to visit the parking office and they would sort it out. When I got there, they said I'd have to pay for a full day visit, because I had no proof of when I arrived. "Au contraire", I said, explaining that I had a photo of my spot on arrival (time stamped). That got my full day fare reduced to a much more reasonable $4.50.

When I returned to the car, there was the missing stub, on the ground, next to the car. I had inadvertently pulled it out and dropped it while I retrieved my phone to take the picture of the pillar by the car.

So the picture I took to remind me where we parked resulted in a lost stub, but saved me from having to pay full fare. Irony?