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  • The Tow Files - Summer/Fall Extravaganza

    Long time, no read. I get it, you all are starving for a fix, but there's not much I can do in the summer due to low general traffic volume. But fear not, for now it is that time of year again! FOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!

    So let's clean up the dregs of summer AND get started on the best crud handegg season can replace it with this fall, shall we? Speaking of which -

    An Inauspicious Start

    This year could be a doozy for we have already had two bad omens from the Football Gods.

    One, our nationally-ranked and overly-hyped team needed an OT frame to dispose of their week 1 opponent. For those of you who don’t do American collegiate football, the home opener of nationally-recognized programs are usually against vastly inferior schools who are paid to show up and take an expected whupping so your season doesn’t start with a passion-killing loss. You’ll play your “serious” games with consequences against the likes of an Ohio State or an Auburn later, but to start, you always play some group of no-name palookas, like Southern Northeast West Virginia University and Lube Shop (ask about their buy 3 and get the 4th free tire deal!).

    These are less games and more an elaborate form of dinner theater. So It doesn’t bode well when you barely eke out a win against Cupcake State.

    Secondly, the first, very first customer on football Saturday morning, before I’d even gotten to the lot, had raised such a stink with Beantown that he’d been forced to call four of the Boroughs finest to come and remove the antagonist. Well, actually, he just called for one. But when the call comes into the station just as a fresh batch of officers are coming on shift, at once, they evidently all decide to respond.

    The reason for the call was Beantown could just not impress on this gentleman that while he may live at Park-a-While Apartments, he didn’t have current permits for the lot. His expired on August 31st, and he never put up a new one. The unlucky victim of this circumstance was adamant that a permit was a permit and it is against the law to tow a guy if he has a permit for a lot, even expired, and it’s also illegal for you to tow a guy who is “trying to raise a family” as opposed to, well, all the students and tailgaters lounging about, I’m not sure what that was all about, except perhaps it was an excuse to get his foul-mouthed kid to swear at us a few times, and his wife to do the same.

    Yeah, he invited the whole clan into the office to yell at Beantown, who was, oddly unmoved by the mass protest. He told them that “The ownah of the cah can stay, the rest of you go outsiahed, nahow”

    That’s when Mr Mouth pulled out his cellphone, declared “I’m recording all this you know! I’m going to get you fired!!!” and probably got some nice video of Beantown picking up the phone and asking for police assistance.

    Naturally, when one cop short of the front line of the Boston Bruins shows up in response, Mr Mouth is suddenly an ideal citizen, his wife a devoted homemaker and their child an absolute angel, can’t you see? There must be some mistake, we never threatened anyone over this misunderstanding about how when the permits at our apartment ran out in August, we had until… August to get new ones up for the next year, and it will never happen again! Honest!

    All in a days work at Friendly Neighborhood Towing, where we deal with more cops before 9am than most of you will see all day!

    Poor Beantown, just trying to do his jahb, and he’s got some wicked pissed family on his case looking to probably key his caah now!



    What Was The Purpose of This Call?

    Aside from giving me an ulcer, that is?

    *RING*

    Friendly Neighborhood Towing, We take cars, and put em behind bars, how can I help you?

    Did you just take my car from Nickles Street Apartments?!

    Let's see, red Accord, Jersey tags?

    Yes!

    Looks like we do have that, it'll...

    WHY DID YOU TOW ME?!?!!

    You didn't have a permit for that lot, it's parking by permit only.

    THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT!!!!!

    ****

    ****

    ****


    Well, maybe besides YOURS. See, the point I was trying to make is right here in front of me, and yours is out there......... wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy out there........... it was so out there in fact, that I swear the Voyager spacecraft just flew by it.

    He then threatened to take us to court for “Damages to his car”

    Now, as the more astute of you have probably noted, he accused us of damage over a phone, without ever seeing his car. Oh yes, he was quite sure we’d done something wrong beaus he saw “scratches on the ground where he[sic] parked!”

    Well, those are scratches left by our equipment, yes, but, it’s designed to scratch the ground….so it doesn’t scratch your car.

    It’s really designed to scratch neither. But the failsafe mode is it will leave little chalk-like scratch marks on the pavement first, usually because the outer tips of the claw hands that wrap around the tires start sagging from worn-out pivot bushings. Ideally, we should replace those at the first sign they can no longer hold perpendicular under their own weight, but trust me, those bushings are right bastards to remove. It’s almost as hard to get them out as an entrenched southern Senator is to remove from congress, no matter HOW much he sounds like Foghorn Leghorn or how many times he proposes that “Sissy Tax” on men’s healthcare products or wants any little league coach that concedes a game once down by 10 runs to go to prison since: “He’s got three more outs, minimum! Don’t he? Lord knows I HATES A QUITTER!!!”



    Dumpster Driving

    Well, it looks like there’s a new fad sweeping America.

    The cool kids are no longer merely eating Tide pods, snorting condoms up their noses or testing the patience of Judges at sentencing….
    Now, It’s dumpster driving.

    The way you play it, you find one of those medium size commercial dumpsters, the kind small enough that it sits on four of those castoring wheels like a shopping cart and can be rolled around by brute force on a flat paved surface.

    Like say the brown one that sits in the parking lot of a convenience store situated on a corner here in town?

    Perfect! Now we play the game! You hit it as hard as you can with your car at 3 in the morning and pinball it from the parking lot where it sat and out into the adjacent street.

    You then flee the scene before anyone saw you, leaving behind said dark-colored dumpster in the middle of a dark unlit stretch of roadway for the next person to come along and plow into.

    Said next person was a Borough police officer, who being more alert than your average 3am motorist, saw it before a collision occurred.

    Too bad, try harder next time Skippy.

    And that was without a doubt one of the oddest tows we’ve ever done, well, winch-outs, actually. That’s how we billed the PD towing account, 20 minutes of winch work on a “Brown hard top convertible, no plates” from the street and back into the parking lot….

    We’re guessing our contestant may have been a bit inebriated and cut through the parking lot in alcoholic confusion on where the street corner actually was, or was making a valiant effort to simply bypass a stop sign, and hit the dumpster by accident. The convenience store was closed at the time, their CCTV wasn’t of any use in the dark, and all we could tell from the paint scrapes and plastic shrapnel left scattered was the car was light blue…. Whoever the progenitor was for this hot new trend amongst our youth will sadly, never get full credit for his work.

    Semper Fi you madman….



    A Likely Story (Spoiler: Not Likely)

    "My truck got stolen"

    That was the “excuse” we got as to why this young lady didn’t feel she should have to pay to get her pickup out of the pound. She wasn't driving it, someone else was, namely the guy who stole it. And I’ll admit that it was a new one for me, gold star, we’ll add that to the “useless excuses” file, but nothing more. It’s still $145, plus another $150 in delinquent parking tickets.

    Yeah, that’s why you got hooked, the Meter Maid was writing you up for not paying a parking meter when their little handheld computer tattled on you and told them you seem to make a habit of parking at meters and not paying them, AND not paying the resulting tickets. To break you of this nasty vice, it was decided to just up and tow you in and MAKE you pay them.

    And that’s when you told us that those tickets weren’t your fault, they must’ve been gotten by the guy who stole your truck.

    Eh, come again?

    Yes, apparently her truck was stolen. And before we can even contemplate if that’s a lie, a dammed lie, or a statistic, she actually gives us a copy of the report she filed with the PD.

    Hmmm, let’s see…..
    Reported stolen the evening of March 17th, this year. Recovered the morning of March 18th, undamaged, from parking lot adjacent to the Catholic Church.
    Now, right away I’m suspicious, especially given the timeline.
    Yeah, anyone else note those dates?

    It suggests either Saint Patrick himself worked a miracle to return that truck to you after some leprechauns had run off with it to make a late-night potato run, or, you reveled in Paddy’s name so vigorously, you simply forgot where you parked your truck that night and reported it stolen in your green-tinted haze. Which the cops chose to humor and “find” for you the next morning when there was zero chance of you committing a DUI with it. And I don’t blame them. If it were me, I’d put Officer O’Hella on the case too. As in “O’Hella no, we ain’t fallin’ for this shite!”

    But even if I DID believe in you, and that you were a victim of Grand Theft Fagan, those parking tickets you got rung up on? The whole reason for this mess?

    Two date from February, BEFORE the “theft” and another was in July, well after “recovery” and the forth that triggered the tow hit the ledger just this morning.

    ALL fall comfortably outside the time the supposed time some other random Mick had your truck.

    No dice, pay up.

    It’s not her lying at this point that bugs me, it truly isn’t, rather it’s the absolute zero-effort put into it. How did they think that would work when by their own “evidence” the truck was only “stolen” for 8 hours this entire YEAR?

    HOW? Is it that HARD to just tell a halfway-convincing fib?

    A guy named Victor Lustig once managed to sell the Eiffel Tower to a Parisienne scrap dealer in 1925 by posing as a government Minister taking bids for its removal as a rusty eyesore. And he wasn’t even French. What’s YOUR excuse?




    Some Things are Just Final

    Not all transactions are negotiable, and some, even if you get lousy service, cannot be reversed by your bank or sent to a manager for reconciliation. Whatever you spent is not coming back. Responding to Nigerian eMails or suffering a street mugging, for example. Here's another.

    A little backstory. This guy got towed for parking at Shoddy Apartments. It’s one of the many pieces of the Global Domination Reality Empire upon which the whining never sets.

    Years ago, this wasn’t a Shoddy Apartment, it was a Shoddy industrial building of some kind. When the change to apartment was made, there was nowhere to put a parking lot as the building neatly filled the lot it sat on. So to rectify that issue, they knocked a hole in the first floor which had been warehouse space, scraped the guts out, and made it a garage. A garage I hate towing out of due to the fact it was never designed to be a garage for cars and has precious little clearance overhead, or side to side, and when you have to squeeze large SUVs out the doors you’re always sweating bullets. And there are dozens of support poles holding the top floors up that are set between every, single, parking space, and they are known to hunger for rearview mirrors….

    This lot is a tow truck driver’s version of a migraine, made corporeal.

    So it was with a bit of trepidation when GDR’s maintenance man called us late one evening and said there was a Subaru WRX illegally parked at Shoddy Apartments. Great, we’ll be tied up there for hours weaseling it out of some Godforsaken back space…. Except we won’t.

    Get on scene to discover the car in question isn’t inside the garage at all, but rather parked on a narrow one-car-wide strip of pavement between the building and the street to the left of the garage entrance. It isn’t even a parking spot, it’s not marked as such, and anyone who’d look close would see that putting a car here makes it impossible for a nearby fire door to open. (You could, in theory, do the same on the right-hand side of the garage door, but then you couldn’t get out of the car due to a telephone pole planted in the ground) Naturally, the blocking of the fire door has upset the Maintenance who’ve called it in for a tow.

    There’s no sign right on the door itself that says “Hey, schmuck, this is the only thing keeping a leaky hot pocket and junk Goodwill store toaster from teaming up and causing 50 people to meet their maker, don’t interfere with it” but there IS a billboard-sized sign right over the garage entrance that has our usual warning on it:
    “Private Permit Parking Only, Violators Towed at Owners Expense, 24/7, Friendly Neighborhood Towing XXX-XXXX” And the WRX has no permit – YOINKS AND AWAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

    About an hour later, in comes the owner.

    Why'd I get towed?!

    You didn't have a permit for the lot

    But I wasn't in a lot!

    You were at 325 South Garden, that's Global Domination Reality property

    What?

    Global Domination Reality, they own that building, it's not public and you parked there without a permit.

    And they just, had me towed? They can’t do that!

    It’s their private property Sir, they have as much right to tow you as you do to tow someone from your own driveway. It will be $145 to get the car back.

    WHAT?!!! The sign doesn't say anything about money!

    Correct.

    So how can they just charge me?

    It's in the borough towing ordinance, illegally parked cars, if they need towed and dollied, and yours did as an AWD are charged $145, flat, no matter what they did or where they did it.

    But the sign does say that!

    True, but the towing ordinance on file with the Borough does.

    Well I don’t think this was very fair. I didn’t even park in the building, I didn’t even go past the sign!

    But you did park on their property, you were off the street, so it wasn’t public

    But I wasn’t trying to get towed… this, this all doesn’t seem very fair to me.

    You can think that if you want, but, it was well within the Borough parking regulations. Those only require 1 sign per 25 spaces and there’s only 15 spaces inside that garage, so one sign at the entrance covers them all AND any remaining “space” on the property.

    I know, I saw that sign, but I thought if I didn’t go past it, It didn’t count.

    Sorry, it covers the whole property, as soon as your turn off the public street and onto that apartment’s property, and you don’t have a permit, you are in violation no matter where you park if signage is visible. In fact, the place you parked isn’t even a valid space, it blocks a fire door, you would’ve been towed from there even if you had a permit.

    Well that wasn’t very clear, who do I complain to?

    You can complain to anyone you want, but none of that affects your bill.

    So there isn’t a manager here I can complain to?

    Not right now, he’ll be back in in the morning.

    And he’ll refund me?

    Probably not.

    Why not?

    Because he’s got no reason to, you were towed for illegal parking as defined by the law in this town, he’s got no reason to refund you and will not refund you.

    Well, these Borough people or whatever, can I complain to them?

    Sure, you can call city hall if you want to and complain about the laws on signage not being as strict as you like, It’s a free country.

    And they’ll give me my money back?

    No

    WHY NOT?

    Well, because they didn’t take any money from you, this fee is between you and us, and we’ve already made it clear we were not in the wrong to tow you, so we aren’t going to give your money back. And you don’t even live here in do you?

    No

    And that’s another reason why they probably won’t care, your vote doesn’t matter to any of them.

    Well, this maintenance guy what’s his number? I want to talk to him and see if he’ll give me my money back.

    I don’t know it

    You don’t know it? He called you and you don’t know his number?!

    Nope, I don’t have caller ID, I just know he’s GDR’s maintenance man, he’s authorized to call in cars on his property, and seeing as he’s the one who wanted you towed, I doubt he’s going to give you anything.

    What about Global Domo… whatever, what’s their number?

    I dunno, it’s in the phone book under “rental properties”, they’re local.

    And I can call them?

    Sure, if you want to

    And they’ll give me my money back?

    No, probably not

    *SIGH* Then tell me who will!

    Nobody

    What do you mean “nobody”?!

    I mean there’s nobody you can call who will do that.

    But I want my money back, this wasn’t fair! Now, who do I call about a refund?!

    I told you, nobody will do that. This isn’t negotiations, this is a fine we are allowed to collect, and that’s it. The only person with any control over this bill is Friendly Neighborhood Towing and You, nobody else has the power to force us to change anything. The only conceivable way you’d ever get it back is to sue us for it in court, and under the law, as it’s written, you will lose because you parked without a permit in someone else’s private lot. They aren't going to side with you just because you don't want to pay.

    I don’t want to go to court, I just want my money back.

    Not happening

    You don’t have to be RUDE about this

    I’m not, am I calling you names? Am I raising my voice? No, I’m not, so I’m not being rude, you’re just asking me for something that’s not possible. I’m trying to save you from wasting your time here. There is nobody, not me, not the manager, not the cops, not the building owner, not the maintenance man, NO ONE is going to give you any money. You can call anyone you like and complain about that, but nobody has any obligation to refund you. And they will not.

    And that's where he begrudgingly gave up, finally. Senator Foghorn may hates a quitter, but here was one that I think even he'd get behind and encourage to just walk away..... sheesh......



    Operation: One Dumb Meathead was a Complete Success, Sir!

    *RING*

    Friendly Neighborhood Towing – Where you lose your wheels if someone squeals, how can I help you?

    Looking for a car that was towed? Okay, what kind?

    You don’t know….. well, then I don’t know if I have it.

    Yes, I have more than one car in here right now, I need a make model or plate.

    It’s silver? So are three of the cars I have in here now, two Hondas and a Nissan Altima.

    You think it’s the Nissan, well, where were you parked?

    300 North Groundhog. That’s impossible, Sir, Groundhog Street is an East-to-West street, not North-to-South. However, lucky you, that Nissan we talked about earlier came from 500 West Ferret Street, a rental property on the corner of the 500 block of W Ferret and 300 block of N Groundhog, so, through your ineptitude of not knowing where you were and what you drove, we’ve rather ironically figured out where you really were and what you drive. That Nissan apparently is indeed yours, $145 if picked up before midnight.

    No, that’s what it costs by Borough regulations.

    Yes, even if you are in the armed forces.

    Yes, even if you are deploying in the morning

    Yes, even if you were just visiting for the night, you had no permit for that lot, the
    signs in that lot clearly say “Parking by Permit Only’

    Yes, signs plural, there’s one on both sides of the building so no matter what street you approach it from, you will be presented with minimum of one sign. And both those aforementioned streets are one-way, you cannot approach the unsigned blindside of the house unless you are fighting the flow of traffic, which does happen. I saw someone do that at 3am one night, come the right way up Groundhog and then turn the wrong way down Ferret past me. Lemme tell ya, never saw 4 police cruisers materialize out of the ether quite as rapidly as that….. So, it’s not like you didn’t have a fair chance.

    Yes, you need a permit to use that lot.

    No, your friend can’t override the rules of the property owner by telling you the permit in their car will “cover you”, one permit, per car, per dummy.

    No, you can’t bring her permit in and use it as a coupon.

    Yes, I’m serious, we will charge you to get your car back.

    Well believe it, I act this way with EVERYONE, even service members.
    *clickslam*

    Suddenly, that pillow fort you all made fun of me for building in the living room seems like a good idea, doesn’t it? (stop laughing, it’s a wifi hotspot and has a mini-fridge) It’ll certainly provide more defense for my home against foreign aggression than that guy would… who doesn’t know what car he drives, can’t read and follow directions, can’t give his location and thinks being in proximity to something is just as good as having it……

    And they’re about to give him access to GUNS and EXPLOSIVES, ON MY DIME.

    Anyone needs me, I’ll be over here, trying to sleep with one eye open, gripping that pillow TIGHT. (#earworm)



    TFW the Truck Driver is a Better Lawyer Than You


    Friendly Neighborhood Towing, it’s a job and an adventure, how can we help you?

    What’s that, Sir? You say I have to give you money?

    Okay, I don’t see a gun in your hand, so I’m going to conclude this isn’t an armed robbery, but a case of believing yourself to be an aggrieved party uncaringly separated from your cash and out for revenge. Since 99% of our customers believe this too, you’ll have to be more specific about what the issue is. First of all, who are you? Who, who? Who hooooooooooo? (#earworm)

    We towed you last week? Ah, yeah, those were the days, we were so young an innocent, and full of..... sorry, I get nostalgic easily. Ahem, so we towed you? Well, being a towing company, I'd say so far we're just stating the obvious, so.... continue.

    We towed you about 4 days ago for some kind of parking violation, and you now demand a refund of the cost of that tow because.... we legally cannot tow cars?

    Well, that's quite a shock, considering I've been doing that for the last 10 years, and had the cops here several times on related and unrelated towing issues, and never once have they expressed that opinion to me.

    You're serious you say? Because you read "the whole law" and there's "nothing in there about towing being legal".

    You Read the whole thing? Really? You read the ENTIRETY of the Pennsylvania criminal code? AKA- Title 18 of Purdon’s Consolidated Statutes? From cover to cover? Impressive if true, and sad if not, because I agree there's nothing in there about towing.

    See, title (book) 18 only pertains to the definitions of crimes and offenses to the Commonwealth, arson, murder, jaywalking, etc And towers like us, we’re regulated under the Vehicles Code, title (book) 75. Which the fine print on your towing slip says at the bottom: Vehicles towed in accordance with PA 75 sec xx para xxx.

    And, even if we were to hypothetically violate that part, title 75 is not enforced through criminal law, but civil law. That’s an even different THIRD title whose number I can’t recall right now because there’s 79 books in that series and they follow no known or logical numbering convention in terms of when they were passed and what they cover. Title 2, for example, are the rules for aircraft while Title 27 covers “escheats”, whatever those are, some kind of fancy pastry I guess…. anyway.

    Looks like you spent the weekend in a legal crash course and wasted an unknown number of cups of coffee for naught as you got the wrong answer even though we gave you all the vowels you’d need to solve that puzzle.

    And that, kids, is why, 999 times out of 1,000, those in legal trouble need an actual LAWYER, and the 1,000th needs a psychiatric hold.

    You LOSE, Good Day, Sir.



    FNGs

    New semester, new crop of kids, and some of them have clearly never before been left unsupervised so when they get towed, they, for the first time in their lives, have to come up with an excuse on their own without parental guidance.

    The results are often cringe-inducing. Here's a sampling of the "Best", and by "Best" I mean "Can I kill them now, Master? Surely quantity overcomes quality when it comes to the human souls you desire?" Observe:

    - But, I parked here like, 3 times, and nothing happened.

    Ted Bundy got away with doing much worse than illegal parking, 29 confirmed times.... and then he cocked it up on try number 30 and the State of Florida gave him a nice hot electron injection. I wouldn't look to him as the ideal case for defense. But at least the worst that happens to you is an injection of red-hot shame.

    - Are you REALLY doing this?

    No, me, this truck, and the "NO PARKING TOWING ENFORCED" signs are just figments of your imagination implanted by your reptilian overlords to keep you docile and in-line. But, don't think about that too hard, break the conditioning and we all just poof out of existence, and THEN who will you pin your life failures on?

    - But you saw me standing RIGHT THERE!

    I saw you standing on a front porch with about five OTHER people, yakking, as I turned the corner into the neighborhood, yes. But how was I supposed to make any connection that gaggle you were part of meant any of you owned the car wayyyyy down at the end of the street that was illegally parked? And even if I HAD known, I only would have waved and blown kisses as I drove past.

    -I'm from Iowa

    They not have parking meters in Iowa? I know they have corn, but I thought the joke about that being all they have was a joke. Guess not. No wonder the current political establishment thinks you guys are only worth 6 Electoral Votes and that may be too much….

    -C'mon, I know I don't have a permit, but isn't it better here than just leaving it out in the street?

    Okay, I'll only break one of your kneecaps with my tire iron then, that's surely better than breaking them both, right? See how "better" is horribly subjective, hence why we have objective things like "PERMIT PARKING ONLY" signs?

    -Look, I know I don't have a permit, I told the landlord I didn't have enough MONEY to buy parking this semester!

    And judging by our current situations, it looks like he just doesn't care about your honesty on that count.

    -Nobody checks behind here!

    Well, uh, I hate to be the guy to have to point this out to you, dude….but. We’ve got YOUR truck in the air right now, where it will cost you $95 to get it down, and right next to this sorry scene is your BUDDY’S truck, also kissing the sky, also requiring $95 to be brought back down from extreme-low Earth orbit, and you both were hooked for neither of your brodozers having permits, I’d say that you’re sadly mistaken and someone DOES check back here and noticed you lacked permission for the lot.

    In this case, “lot” may have been charitable, seeing as you were already 40 yards from where the pavement ended, in the grass, BEHIND the apartment block, in a tiny mowed strip of land that serves as a warning track for those who do go back here that there is a pretty steep cliff that starts at the property line and continues downwards a couple hundred feet into a shallow ravine that contains, the city’s wastewater treatment plant. Parking back here is not only not allowed, it wasn’t even planned for, there’s no fence or guardrail because cars aren’t even allowed back here, or supposed to be back here, and when you sneak back here in the dark, like you and your buddy have done, I wonder if you were even aware that less than 3 feet beyond where your front tires stopped is where the ground would end and not start again until you crater in the sewage. I know they specialize in handling large pieces of s#it down there, but I doubt they’d want to take you on.

    I will say, you almost got away with it, it’s so ludicrously hard and foolish to squeeze back here that it rarely happens, in fact, before tonight, it's never happened but once more in my collective memory so I don't usually even think to l. But when I turned into the neighborhood, and my headlight beams swept across the woods and brush treeline for just a second, and your highly-reflective license plates winked back at me from where nothing should be? That was, as Colonial Marine Hudson once so eloquently put: “Game Over, man”.

    - You don't have to make me look STUPID

    Oh, rest assured Sir, I'm not helping. You are doing such a thorough job of that on your own that were I to render additional assistance in any way, I believe the SEC would immediately charge us both under anti-trust law.

    And it was kinda stupid to park in the lot for Substandard Taco and then walk away to class, because this lot is clearly marked for "Substandard Taco Customers Only". And they don't even HAVE any of those anymore. (Looks like they were too substandard for even the Substandard Taco brand and the franchise shuttered the location at the start of the semester)


    Is it any wonder there are days I muse how even one of those millions of spermatozoa manages to find it's target if this is what it will eventually produce, I call em "weekdays".



    The Streisand Effect

    In the summertime, when the weather is hot, you can stretch right up and touch the sky (#earworm)

    Also, June-August is when most of the big rental properties like Global Domination Reality do “turnover”. They strip the destroyed carpet and furnishing out of their units, repaint the walls, reseal the parking lots, fumigate for pests, hide the bodies, the kind of stuff that is best done when the apartments are at low occupancy. Summer semester is a short 8-6 weeker and even grownups would rather not be in school during those months, so you only have 20% of what you’d normally see around campus and town.

    During this time, the lots are off so contractors don’t have to purchase parking for their cars and trucks and we don’’ have the logistical nightmare of trying to keep an up-do-date list of cars that are allowed in this lot at these times, but not these times…. And GDR isn’t the only one. Several other conglomerates do the same.
    End result, the list of lots we are actively towing from shrinks from a high of 75 to, maybe 9?

    Yes, Nine.

    Yes….. that’s it, nine.

    I don’t like it any more than you do. My thoughts - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoMgnJDXd3k

    Suffice it to say I was getting dizzy driving in circles to those nine lots a couple times a day in a futile search for cars to tow.

    Apparently, I wasn't the only one fed up with the situation.

    Upon driving past 506 Railroad Ave for the third time on shift, a red Honda suddenly backs out of the lot, goes flying past me, cuts me off, and the driver gets out and demands to know why I'm "stalking" him.

    I tell him I'm not.

    He says he's seen me "following and harassing" him all day today, so yes, I'm stalking.

    I explain "No, I'm not, I'm checking the lots for cars without permits, which I am entitled to do for your rental property by the owners, Wrong Side of the Tracks Reality, and I know your car, it has a permit, that's why I keep driving past it and not, you know, towing it?"

    He looks inside my vehicle, I guess trying to spot "stalking tools" or something, but sees nothing except me, a tow truck and a stack of "MOVE THIS CAR OR GET TOWED" warning tickets that some of the lots require you hand out and wait an hour on before towing

    The last of which seems to convince him I'm not a stalker, but I'm still a harasser because he says he's going to go down to WSOTT reality and complain about me.

    I guess he did just that. Because the next morning there was a note in my mailbox, there was a note in everyone's mailbox that if we see a Red Honda Accord license XYZ-333 at 506 Railraod, let alone any other WSOTT property, it is to be towed immediately despite having a permit. Because he has not paid for parking in 3 months....

    Yeah, he went down to the office to complain, they cross-checked him and noticed he had stopped paying his dues and revoked him on-the-spot. That's Watergate-level self pwnage right there ladies and gents. In an effort to complain about not being towed and keep from not being towed, he ensured he would, in fact, get towed.

    And the Cherry-on-top, WSOTT just sent us a copy of his parking application so we'd have all that vehicle info, included on said application along with that car description is a photocopy of his driver's license. Now I know his full name, his hometown, his address...... if I REALLY wanted to stalk him, ain't much stopping me now!

    And this kids, is why telling the world not to push your buttons only results in a long line of people queuing up to push said button.



    Fake Me Baby, One More Time

    Fear not, while pickings were slim over summer, I did get a few more fakes for the fake file.

    Well, it's not a fake file, it's a real file, but it has fake stuff in it. Well, the stuff is real, but it's fa... look, just read dammit or we'll be here all day.

    1 - https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...19&oe=5C29255B

    Dat “expiration” date, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha……. NO.

    Aside from being the wrong font, genuine permits run out when the semester is over. That happens on August 10th, NOT the end of the month, you insufferable bellend. And when you pulled the sticker off the window to fudge them, the defroster grid left telltale scars all over it, you should've lined it up better when re-applying.

    And after he got towed in, his next bright idea was not to buy a new permit, or even a temp tag from the complex, but, to illegally park in the driveway of the private RESIDENCE next door to that apartment..

    I was not surprised that his next move after that was into the street where the Borough booted the car for what I assume is nonpayment of Borough parking tickets.

    The only upside of shooting yourself in the foot repeatedly like this? Even at the smallest caliber, you will run out of target, eventually.

    2 - https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...62&oe=5C23F0B2

    Son, for 8 years, I believed in Santa Claus, that says a lot about how bad your attempt was that I didn't even believe it for 5 seconds.

    And talk about indecisive, wanted to fudge some new dates and couldn't even settle on which 12 hour chunk of the day he/she liked the most.... well, that'll get you every time, just ask the squirrel that makes it 4/5ths of the way across the road only to suddenly turn back and dart underneath that 18 wheeler.... we've all seen it happen, and some of us STILL don't learn.



    And Speaking of Not Learning

    Salvador Dali is often mis-credited with once saying: "When I order lobster in a fine restaurant, why does the waiter return with lobster and not a flaming telephone book?"

    Though probably not true, the idea being satirized is a thought-provoking one: that given the infinite possible outcomes of the universe, it's amazing anything happens the way we want it to when the number of ways it could be done in a manner we DON'T want are limitless.

    Or, more succinctly, and in a quote that we KNOW was made by the man who it's attributed to, consider the observation of Air Force Colonel John Paul Stapp - "The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle".

    You can do it wrong till the end of time, but there is only ever one way to do it right.

    Case in point, the gentleman at Lolcow Townhomes with the Grey Kia Sorrento.

    Aside from the initial mistake he made in buying a Korean-made SUV, this gentleman seems to have a hard time understanding the parking rules of this neighborhood.

    Lolcow Townhomes was built on a street that is a divided parkway, a lane, a hedgerow and another lane. As such, you cannot park IN the street as that blocks one of the travel lanes and the Borough does not like this, and the firemen and garbagemen in their big trucks that frequently need a wide berth like it even less. They like it so little, you'll be towed for doing it.

    Now, Lolcow thought of how this may make parking in the area problematic, so when they laid the street, every 50 yards or so, there is a stand-off cutout section where you can parallel park a car if you are visiting (The residents have garages, but they butt up to the street and lack proper driveways).

    Mr Sorrento didn't seem to grasp this, as despite warning signs all over the neighborhood to only use the parallel spaces, he kept parking in the travel lanes, forcing people to hop curbs to get around him until our truck arrived.

    Finally, exasperated after a couple tows, he asked the Towing Manager during pickup exactly WHY this kept happeneing.

    Towing Manager told him he had to park in those cutouts, and if he did, he'd never get towed again.

    So Mr Sorrento, after his latest catch-and-release, went back to Lolcow Townhomes, and finally did park in the parallel spaces.

    Perpendicularly

    He put the front half of the car nose-first into the cutout, leaving the back half sticking out in the travel lane of the parkway, forcing people to hop curbs until we got there to tow it....

    You make something foolproof.... and nature goes and makes a better fool.... not only can you not win this game, the AI is cheating the whole time.... Why do we even try?



    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnnnnd....... rest.
    - They say nothing good happens at 2AM, they're right, I happen at 2AM.

  • #2
    O Frabjous day! It's an Arga post!

    Quoth Argabarga View Post
    It’s almost as hard to get them out as an entrenched southern Senator is to remove from congress, no matter HOW much he sounds like Foghorn Leghorn or how many times he proposes that “Sissy Tax” on men’s healthcare products or wants any little league coach that concedes a game once down by 10 runs to go to prison since: “He’s got three more outs, minimum! Don’t he? Lord knows I HATES A QUITTER!!!”
    Sir, AH SAY, SIR! I will hear no negativity about the fine gentleman from the state of [mumble], Senator Claghorn!

    Quoth Argabarga View Post
    Senator Foghorn may hates a quitter, but here was one that I think even he'd get behind and encourage to just walk away..... sheesh......
    Nice kid, but I don't think his elevator goes all the way up to the top floor.

    Quoth Argabarga View Post
    Anyone needs me, I’ll be over here, trying to sleep with one eye open, gripping that pillow TIGHT. (#earworm)
    EXXXXXIT: LIGHT! ENNNNNNNNTER: NIGHT!
    TAAAAAKE MY HAAAAAAND....

    Quoth Argabarga View Post
    First of all, who are you? Who, who? Who hooooooooooo? (#earworm)
    I really wanna knoooow....

    Quoth Argabarga View Post
    I guess he did just that. Because the next morning there was a note in my mailbox, there was a note in everyone's mailbox that if we see a Red Honda Accord license XYZ-333 at 506 Railraod, let alone any other WSOTT property, it is to be towed immediately despite having a permit. Because he has not paid for parking in 3 months....

    Yeah, he went down to the office to complain, they cross-checked him and noticed he had stopped paying his dues and revoked him on-the-spot. That's Watergate-level self pwnage right there ladies and gents. In an effort to complain about not being towed and keep from not being towed, he ensured he would, in fact, get towed.
    Gotta love a good self-PWNZER.
    PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

    There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

    Comment


    • #3
      The guy in the Red Accord was obviously feeling guilty and expecting to get caught. Nice to see that his worrying was not in vain.
      This was one of those times where my mouth says "have a nice day" but my brain says "go step on a Lego". - RegisterAce
      I can't make something magically appear to fulfill all your hopes and dreams. Believe me, if I could I'd be the first person I'd help. - Trixie

      Comment


      • #4
        A new Argabarga post!

        Nice to know there's a never-ending supply of idiots to keep us laughing.
        "I look at the stars. It's a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That's where I'll be going soon. "We are all star stuff." I suddenly remember Delenn's line from Joe's script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all."
        -Mira Furlan

        Comment


        • #5
          Quoth Jay 2K Winger View Post
          O Frabjous day! It's an Arga post!

          Absolutely!!
          I'm trying to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my keister!

          Who is John Galt?
          -Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

          Comment


          • #6
            We take cars, and put em behind bars

            Where you lose your wheels if someone squeals
            I love these!

            As usual, a fantastic post! Man, what a bunch of twits.
            When you start at zero, everything's progress.

            Comment


            • #7
              Well, maybe besides YOURS. See, the point I was trying to make is right here in front of me, and yours is out there......... wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy out there........... it was so out there in fact, that I swear the Voyager spacecraft just flew by it.
              The one with Captain Janeway?
              (Perhaps this one?)

              Aaaaaaaand of course thanks for your amazing storys! I missed them so hard!
              Native German, so my writing might be a bit ... special. I try my best to get better

              Comment


              • #8
                So Arga perhaps you would be good enough to enlighten me. What are the rules on parking in a lot if that company shuts down? Is it still their property or is it now just unowned space free for anyone?My first thought* if I was parking there would be 'This lot was owned by the Awful Taco Company.They don't exist any more so how can they have me towed?'


                *actually my first thought was this parking would be much more fun if I were doing it with my hands on a cheerleader's tits and REO Speedwagon on the stereo...
                The Copyright Monster has made me tell you that my avatar is courtesy of the wonderful Alice XZ.And you don't want to annoy the Copyright Monster.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Quoth Kit-Ginevra View Post
                  So Arga perhaps you would be good enough to enlighten me. What are the rules on parking in a lot if that company shuts down? Is it still their property or is it now just unowned space free for anyone?My first thought* if I was parking there would be 'This lot was owned by the Awful Taco Company.They don't exist any more so how can they have me towed?'
                  Even if the restaurant has shut down, their corporation still own the lot... unless it's been sold to someone, surrendered to a bank, etc, or even forfeited to the state. Whoever owns it will have at least some interest in its not becoming free parking, or worse a "hangout".

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Yay, Arga posts are always so amazing. Lovely to read.

                    All of them, but in particular that last guy. How do you expect your car to NOT get towed when it's blocking traffic?! I mean, the other idiots at least parked someplace. In a parking spot, or some lot with an empty patch that will fit their car. I mean, they're still dumb, but at least they had the sense to get out of the way of traffic.

                    Also, as to parking spots attached to vacant buildings... In my town property management companies have to be careful. Blink and it's full of sad looking campers and cars that people live in. There's one side road I cut through in an industrial area with street parking that was usually 90% empty. Then one day, a couple motor homes and old vans with duct taped back windows. In addition, there was a space in between where people had placed garbage bags overflowing with... things.... and then set up some folding chairs. They stayed a couple weeks, then poof! Gone.
                    Replace anger management with stupidity management.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Quoth Kit-Ginevra View Post
                      So Arga perhaps you would be good enough to enlighten me. What are the rules on parking in a lot if that company shuts down?
                      Still belongs to the corporation (or it's local real-estate holding arm) it doesn't become free public parking unless the owners sell it to the Borough, and even then, it wouldn't be free, the Borough would install parking meters.

                      There is not, never was, and never will be, free-for-all parking in this town, tis an impossible dream.

                      We only had to deal with that kind of problem for a week though, before said company put up the 10 foot chain link fence fortress around it to make sure everyone got the message that it was CLOSED.
                      - They say nothing good happens at 2AM, they're right, I happen at 2AM.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        ...our nationally-ranked and overly-hyped team needed an OT frame to dispose of their week 1 opponent.
                        You think they'd have looked at what that same opponent did to my local nationally-ranked and overly-hyped team, here in the Lower Land of Ravenous Weasels, eleven years ago.

                        Oddly enough, the towing companies here often use the same colors as the aforementioned local nationally-ranked and overly-hyped team, which I'd imagine probably causes a LOT of fun on game day...
                        "I often look at every second idiot and think, 'He needs more power.'" --Varric Tethras, Dragon Age II

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I needed this. Thanks.
                          AkaiKitsune
                          Sarcasm dear, sarcasm. I’m well aware that dealing with civilians in any capacity will skin your faith in humanity alive, then pickle anything that remains so as to watch it shrivel up into an immortal husk thus reminding you of how dead inside you now are.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            You know, I'd just been watching this and afterwards was like, "I haven't seen an Arga post in a while!" And then I come here to this. Ah, the timing.
                            "Oh, the strawberries don't taste as they used to and the thighs of women have lost their clutch!"

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              It suggests either Saint Patrick himself worked a miracle to return that truck to you after some leprechauns had run off with it to make a late-night potato run, or, you reveled in Paddy’s name so vigorously, you simply forgot where you parked your truck that night and reported it stolen in your green-tinted haze. Which the cops chose to humor and “find” for you the next morning when there was zero chance of you committing a DUI with it. And I don’t blame them. If it were me, I’d put Officer O’Hella on the case too. As in “O’Hella no, we ain’t fallin’ for this shite!”

                              But even if I DID believe in you, and that you were a victim of Grand Theft Fagan, those parking tickets you got rung up on? The whole reason for this mess?
                              Oh my god this part is genius!

                              I loved your earworms too.
                              "If we refund your money, give you a free replacement and shoot the manager, then will you be happy?" - sign seen in a restaurant

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