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Can't Make it, Fake it.
For those of you who bet three weeks before my first fake permits of the semester started showing up, go see your local bookie for your winnings, or alternately, if you did NOT have three weeks, plead with him to leave you with at least one functioning kneecap.
The first forger at least had the decency to load the copier with some day-glo green paper, seeing as their plan of photocopying their old permit from last year straight-up wouldn't pass muster as it would come out monochrome.
Problem with that, a greyscale copy, even when printed on the right-color paper base still looks too dark to pass for the real McCoy unless you adjust the contrast way wayyyyyy up to get rid of the foggy shades of grey.
And that's BEFORE we get to the additional problems your attempt had.
I reiterate: green was the color of LAST year's permits in this lot, they've since gone to day-glo pink
It's also printed on paper, not cardstock, and with nightime temps falling into the mid-60's here as of late (Summer's over,
) that means that there's plenty of condensation inside the cars in the morning. So much dampness in fact, that your hanging piece of paper started curling up like a Frito corn chip when exposed to said moisture. That's not suspicious at all 
when a "permit" goes all "bacon strip" on me.
It also was rather clumsy of you to try and change the "2014" expiry on the original to "2015" on the copy with the aid of a thick felt-tipped black permanent marker, it would appear, since that wasn't exactly a seamless alteration, being at least a dozen points wider than any other font on the whole mess.
On the bright side, the car it was up in was, of all things, a Ford Maverick. Talk about something I thought was extinct! The last one I saw, was as a kid, in 1985, on TV, when "Howlin' Mad" Murdock made a really goofy face while he dropped a wrecking ball on one right after all the goons inside hastily vacated in a panic.
They were disposable prop cars THIRTY years ago, let alone still driveable....
But nostalgia won't save you chief! Get a REAL permit next time!
Next up, someone who went to the trouble of sourcing some day-glo pink cardstock to put their fake on.
Finally! They're learning that you can't go the cheap route with paper and expect to get results!
Alas, this guy was still far too cheap for his own good, as instead of investing in a printer/scanner combo to get the all-important lettering to go on it, he decided 80 cents for a felt tip pen was good enough...
He HAND DREW all the lettering and lines
Note to all aspiring forgers: Even sober, you do NOT have a steady enough hand to duplicate machine-printed precision. Nor can you even hope to have so much as a DREAM in which you draw a line as straight as one made on a machine, at least without aide of an artificial straight edge.
It looked good at 50 paces
It induced bemused laughter at 5 paces, and a cry from me of "Go home, permit, you're drunk"
You know, if you want me to grade your forging work, just bring the darn phoney in to me and plop it on the desk, I can give you all this constructive criticism as a public service for FREE, as opposed to when you use your car as collateral and just place your bets.
Poor You, Huh?
Granted, I don't know your current financial status, I know it's very well possible that in this day and age, you can appear to have all the trappings of social success on the surface, while underneath, you're so mired in debt and deficit spending that your bank won't even float you a loan for buying Baltic Ave on the Monopoly board.
But, even if you're telling us the gilded truth, it's a VERY bad look to plea poverty and claim you cannot POSSIBLY pay us $115 to get your shiny new LEXUS out of impound for illegal parking, while wearing designer clothes. Doubly so if we are to believe your claim of residency at the townhome complex you were towed from. (which is irrelevant in the grand scheme, we'll tow residents if you don't have a permit up, and you didn't. I can only assume you thought the electric gate around the place would keep you safe if your friends let you in. And it probably would, if the landlord hadn't given us the code too) True, you don't exactly have to be a Rockafeller to rent there. But on the sliding scale of rental unit desirability, that place is a lot closer to the "Park Avenue Penthouse" end than "large cardboard refrigerator box under freeway bridge" end.
Like I said, saying you can't afford $115 is just a bad look for you.
Worse look? The demanding to see a manager part. In the misguided hope that he'd see it your way and let you leave without paying the same amount everyone else owes when their car goes in the dock.
Of course, the "manager" was the person you were talking to already, that didn't get you very far.
Then you wanted his manager
Well, it was Saturday at the time, his manager won't be available for comment until Monday morning, and, if you wait until then.
A. You'll get the same answer
B. You'll owe MORE as the $35 per day storage still applies
If you want to run up your bill, hey, it's a free country, but we're warning you, he's going to say the Exact. Same. Thing.
Undaunted, you went around that loop a few times anyway....
- I want a manager now!
- Speaking
- I want YOUR manager!
- He'll be here Monday
- I want a manager now!
- Speaking
Note, they weren't loud, or vulgar, they just didn't get it. "IT" being they're out of options. They owe us the kingly ransom of $115 come hell, high water, or locusts.
I mean, $115 is a three-digit value, so it's not INCONSEQUENTIAL, but, it's not a LOT. Every time I go to the big box store for household needs, like laundry soap, jeans, and groceries, that's about how much I can reasonably spend. When my car insurance comes due each month, that's about how much I spend. Every three tanks of gas I burn through, that's about how much it costs, give or take. So, saying you can't afford $115 is saying that you're a stop for gas and a dinner out from complete poverty. Not sayin' it's impossible, but, I'm not impressed.
And yes, they paid, after 20 or so minutes of whining they couldn't, with a credit card. Perhaps they didn't have the money, but they still had $115 of credit line behind them.
All About the Benjamin
Speaking of not having money. This next guy did. And that was the problem.
It all started when we innocently towed him from his girlfriends place, or tried to, as he came running out at warp speed when he noticed Eugene had just picked up his car on account of not having a permit.
This guy decides to try and humiliate us and tried to pay for a $65 drop with a $100 bill and insisted "that's the only way I can pay"
"Tries" being the operative word there.
Well, because we aren't exactly beloved by the public, and aren't looking to give them any MORE reason to murder us than they may already have, we do NOT carry cash.
Well, you're out of luck as far as change goes, Eugene can't break that, at least at this juncture. You will have to pick your change up in the morning at the office
No, that's not illegal
No, we're not denying you your money
If that's the ONLY way you can pay that's the ONLY way we can get you change
No, there's simply no way to get you change right here, right now, we don't carry cash.
Yes, it doesn't say "exact change only" on any of our paperwork. No, it doesn't have to. No, we can demand exact change only. No that's not illegal. *sigh* Okay, you want to play this game? Guess what, it also doesn't say you can't pay in rubles, or shiny seashells, wampum beads, the heads of wanted criminals, the English Crown Jewels or, firstborn.
But you can't pay us those ways, either.
Oh, now you're a lawyer?
Great!
Threatening us with legal action has GOT to be the most hollow of threats, or at least right up there with threats to call your newspaper or congresscritter on us.
But, people try it anyway.
Seems our latest customer was a, wait for it, lawyer!
Or his dad was a lawyer...
Or he was in school to be a lawyer...
Or something, it was kind of hard to tell the specifics, but, rest assured, there was legal counsel SOMEWHERE in his family tree and we were all going to be in Big Trouble (tm) for what we're doing!
Yeah, look junior, you wants we should see how well you know your Miranda rights? Because, unless you either accept the fact you ain't gettin' change tonight, or come up with another form of payment, this car is leaving, now, and trying to get in the way will get you a quick visit from this Boroughs Finest who will fit you with some shiny new wrist hardware if you insist on being a pest. And guess what? It'll be 100% LEGAL! Ask your Dad about that one, with your one free phone call.
He decided at that point to pay, with a credit card.
His GIRLFRIEND'S credit card.
Ah, now it all makes sense, you trying to drop that Benjamin was all one big attempt to avoid having to emasculate yourself in front of her, wasn't it? I'd say I feel sorry for your failure, but that'd be a damn lie.
The Gatekeeper
Lately, we've had a rash of people come into the impound yard to get their wallets/purses/shiny seashells out of their car so they can PAY to get it back, and trying to DRIVE OFF. Oh, there's a litany of excuses. They don't want to walk back up, we can't legally tell them not to
, they need to test drive it to make sure we didn't break it before they'll pay.... yadda yadda yadda, doesn't matter. This is not a bar, or a kid's hoagie sandwich charity sale, there are no tabs and no "honor system".
PAY first then LEAVE, get it out of order, or omit one of the two steps, and we'll call the cops.
Anyway, we had one particularly defiant lady who tried to drive out of the lot without paying first.
Too bad Johnny Ruckus, our new driver who has 15 years as a REPO agent like Twitch before coming to us, was on duty.
He quickly powers the gate shut as she was just feet from getting out.
She rants and raves about how we can't detain her, Ruckus tells her she needs to go PAY for the car before leaving.
She states it's her intention to just sit there until he lets her out, because she is NOT walking back up to the office and "you have to open that gate sometime"
Ruckus walks over to said gate, pulls open the motor box, hits the "open" button, and as soon as it's slid far enough to one side to let a person walk out, he yanks out the fuse. It stops dead, with nowhere near enough room to drive a car out.
He smiles blithely as she does a cattbut face behind the wheel.
She gets out, stops through the opening and declares "I'll be back! But I'm leaving my car RIGHT HERE!"
ORLY?
Soon as she turns the corner and is out of sight. Ruckus fires up his tow truck, and puts the lady's car back in the spot she pulled it out of.
The look on her face when she came back... to say nothing of the sudden onset of apoplexy when she found her car back in a parking space. She went off on Johnny for a second time, but he just shrugged his shoulders "It was blocking a travel lane, it ain't now"
I'm gonna LIKE this guy.
And then, there was the "delivery" guy. I'm using quotes because that was his attempt to dodge fines/fees for being towed, that we mistakenly towed a delivery driver who was "only there a minute"
Yeah... uh... some issues with that
A. The place you said you deliver for wasn't open when you got towed at 9AM
B. You only got TOWED at 9AM, your car was called in at 8AM and it just took that long to get a free truck down there to nab you
C. You didn't come looking for the car until 11AM, so much for the "just a minute" lie
D. You were in the "ostrich" space. This complex has a garage, and you were at the furthest corner of the lowest level, backed in, and hugging the walls as tightly as you could without knocking off your OTHER rearview mirror (your passenger side one was messily amputated at some point, it looks like, probably your superlative driving skills at work) That's a clear "hope they don't see me" move.
E. You're already in our system as having been ticketed and towed, and those tows have not been voided out as mistaken tows of the delivery guy.
We didn't even have to break a sweat to win that fight.
He ALSO tried to leave the lot without paying, got denied by the drivers working the gate, and raised such a stink about it he was actually told to leave ,as in OFF the property and come back after he's cooled off enough to behave himself. (He apparently was told to go up front and pay, and instead was spotted lingering around the back gate, and tried to walk back in when the next person came by to get their car, hoping we wouldn't notice TWO cars leaving when the office only released ONE)
He did eventually come back and pay, well, drug his girlfriend in to pay (seeing a trend here? It must be worth risking an arrest before having to beg your significant other for cash to fix your f*ckup)
It also makes it pretty clear what you were doing over there for three hours in the morning....
Yeah, you were delivering alright.... delivering the sausage.
A heeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy ohhhhhhhhhhh! *rimshot*
For those of you who bet three weeks before my first fake permits of the semester started showing up, go see your local bookie for your winnings, or alternately, if you did NOT have three weeks, plead with him to leave you with at least one functioning kneecap.
The first forger at least had the decency to load the copier with some day-glo green paper, seeing as their plan of photocopying their old permit from last year straight-up wouldn't pass muster as it would come out monochrome.
Problem with that, a greyscale copy, even when printed on the right-color paper base still looks too dark to pass for the real McCoy unless you adjust the contrast way wayyyyyy up to get rid of the foggy shades of grey.
And that's BEFORE we get to the additional problems your attempt had.
I reiterate: green was the color of LAST year's permits in this lot, they've since gone to day-glo pink
It's also printed on paper, not cardstock, and with nightime temps falling into the mid-60's here as of late (Summer's over,
) that means that there's plenty of condensation inside the cars in the morning. So much dampness in fact, that your hanging piece of paper started curling up like a Frito corn chip when exposed to said moisture. That's not suspicious at all when a "permit" goes all "bacon strip" on me. It also was rather clumsy of you to try and change the "2014" expiry on the original to "2015" on the copy with the aid of a thick felt-tipped black permanent marker, it would appear, since that wasn't exactly a seamless alteration, being at least a dozen points wider than any other font on the whole mess.
On the bright side, the car it was up in was, of all things, a Ford Maverick. Talk about something I thought was extinct! The last one I saw, was as a kid, in 1985, on TV, when "Howlin' Mad" Murdock made a really goofy face while he dropped a wrecking ball on one right after all the goons inside hastily vacated in a panic.
They were disposable prop cars THIRTY years ago, let alone still driveable....
But nostalgia won't save you chief! Get a REAL permit next time!
Next up, someone who went to the trouble of sourcing some day-glo pink cardstock to put their fake on.
Finally! They're learning that you can't go the cheap route with paper and expect to get results!
Alas, this guy was still far too cheap for his own good, as instead of investing in a printer/scanner combo to get the all-important lettering to go on it, he decided 80 cents for a felt tip pen was good enough...
He HAND DREW all the lettering and lines
Note to all aspiring forgers: Even sober, you do NOT have a steady enough hand to duplicate machine-printed precision. Nor can you even hope to have so much as a DREAM in which you draw a line as straight as one made on a machine, at least without aide of an artificial straight edge.
It looked good at 50 paces
It induced bemused laughter at 5 paces, and a cry from me of "Go home, permit, you're drunk"
You know, if you want me to grade your forging work, just bring the darn phoney in to me and plop it on the desk, I can give you all this constructive criticism as a public service for FREE, as opposed to when you use your car as collateral and just place your bets.
Poor You, Huh?
Granted, I don't know your current financial status, I know it's very well possible that in this day and age, you can appear to have all the trappings of social success on the surface, while underneath, you're so mired in debt and deficit spending that your bank won't even float you a loan for buying Baltic Ave on the Monopoly board.
But, even if you're telling us the gilded truth, it's a VERY bad look to plea poverty and claim you cannot POSSIBLY pay us $115 to get your shiny new LEXUS out of impound for illegal parking, while wearing designer clothes. Doubly so if we are to believe your claim of residency at the townhome complex you were towed from. (which is irrelevant in the grand scheme, we'll tow residents if you don't have a permit up, and you didn't. I can only assume you thought the electric gate around the place would keep you safe if your friends let you in. And it probably would, if the landlord hadn't given us the code too) True, you don't exactly have to be a Rockafeller to rent there. But on the sliding scale of rental unit desirability, that place is a lot closer to the "Park Avenue Penthouse" end than "large cardboard refrigerator box under freeway bridge" end.
Like I said, saying you can't afford $115 is just a bad look for you.
Worse look? The demanding to see a manager part. In the misguided hope that he'd see it your way and let you leave without paying the same amount everyone else owes when their car goes in the dock.
Of course, the "manager" was the person you were talking to already, that didn't get you very far.
Then you wanted his manager
Well, it was Saturday at the time, his manager won't be available for comment until Monday morning, and, if you wait until then.
A. You'll get the same answer
B. You'll owe MORE as the $35 per day storage still applies
If you want to run up your bill, hey, it's a free country, but we're warning you, he's going to say the Exact. Same. Thing.
Undaunted, you went around that loop a few times anyway....
- I want a manager now!
- Speaking
- I want YOUR manager!
- He'll be here Monday
- I want a manager now!
- Speaking
Note, they weren't loud, or vulgar, they just didn't get it. "IT" being they're out of options. They owe us the kingly ransom of $115 come hell, high water, or locusts.
I mean, $115 is a three-digit value, so it's not INCONSEQUENTIAL, but, it's not a LOT. Every time I go to the big box store for household needs, like laundry soap, jeans, and groceries, that's about how much I can reasonably spend. When my car insurance comes due each month, that's about how much I spend. Every three tanks of gas I burn through, that's about how much it costs, give or take. So, saying you can't afford $115 is saying that you're a stop for gas and a dinner out from complete poverty. Not sayin' it's impossible, but, I'm not impressed.
And yes, they paid, after 20 or so minutes of whining they couldn't, with a credit card. Perhaps they didn't have the money, but they still had $115 of credit line behind them.
All About the Benjamin
Speaking of not having money. This next guy did. And that was the problem.
It all started when we innocently towed him from his girlfriends place, or tried to, as he came running out at warp speed when he noticed Eugene had just picked up his car on account of not having a permit.
This guy decides to try and humiliate us and tried to pay for a $65 drop with a $100 bill and insisted "that's the only way I can pay"
"Tries" being the operative word there.
Well, because we aren't exactly beloved by the public, and aren't looking to give them any MORE reason to murder us than they may already have, we do NOT carry cash.
Well, you're out of luck as far as change goes, Eugene can't break that, at least at this juncture. You will have to pick your change up in the morning at the office
No, that's not illegal
No, we're not denying you your money
If that's the ONLY way you can pay that's the ONLY way we can get you change
No, there's simply no way to get you change right here, right now, we don't carry cash.
Yes, it doesn't say "exact change only" on any of our paperwork. No, it doesn't have to. No, we can demand exact change only. No that's not illegal. *sigh* Okay, you want to play this game? Guess what, it also doesn't say you can't pay in rubles, or shiny seashells, wampum beads, the heads of wanted criminals, the English Crown Jewels or, firstborn.
But you can't pay us those ways, either.
Oh, now you're a lawyer?
Great!
Threatening us with legal action has GOT to be the most hollow of threats, or at least right up there with threats to call your newspaper or congresscritter on us.
But, people try it anyway.
Seems our latest customer was a, wait for it, lawyer!
Or his dad was a lawyer...
Or he was in school to be a lawyer...
Or something, it was kind of hard to tell the specifics, but, rest assured, there was legal counsel SOMEWHERE in his family tree and we were all going to be in Big Trouble (tm) for what we're doing!
Yeah, look junior, you wants we should see how well you know your Miranda rights? Because, unless you either accept the fact you ain't gettin' change tonight, or come up with another form of payment, this car is leaving, now, and trying to get in the way will get you a quick visit from this Boroughs Finest who will fit you with some shiny new wrist hardware if you insist on being a pest. And guess what? It'll be 100% LEGAL! Ask your Dad about that one, with your one free phone call.
He decided at that point to pay, with a credit card.
His GIRLFRIEND'S credit card.
Ah, now it all makes sense, you trying to drop that Benjamin was all one big attempt to avoid having to emasculate yourself in front of her, wasn't it? I'd say I feel sorry for your failure, but that'd be a damn lie.
The Gatekeeper
Lately, we've had a rash of people come into the impound yard to get their wallets/purses/shiny seashells out of their car so they can PAY to get it back, and trying to DRIVE OFF. Oh, there's a litany of excuses. They don't want to walk back up, we can't legally tell them not to
, they need to test drive it to make sure we didn't break it before they'll pay.... yadda yadda yadda, doesn't matter. This is not a bar, or a kid's hoagie sandwich charity sale, there are no tabs and no "honor system". PAY first then LEAVE, get it out of order, or omit one of the two steps, and we'll call the cops.
Anyway, we had one particularly defiant lady who tried to drive out of the lot without paying first.
Too bad Johnny Ruckus, our new driver who has 15 years as a REPO agent like Twitch before coming to us, was on duty.
He quickly powers the gate shut as she was just feet from getting out.
She rants and raves about how we can't detain her, Ruckus tells her she needs to go PAY for the car before leaving.
She states it's her intention to just sit there until he lets her out, because she is NOT walking back up to the office and "you have to open that gate sometime"
Ruckus walks over to said gate, pulls open the motor box, hits the "open" button, and as soon as it's slid far enough to one side to let a person walk out, he yanks out the fuse. It stops dead, with nowhere near enough room to drive a car out.
He smiles blithely as she does a cattbut face behind the wheel.
She gets out, stops through the opening and declares "I'll be back! But I'm leaving my car RIGHT HERE!"
ORLY?
Soon as she turns the corner and is out of sight. Ruckus fires up his tow truck, and puts the lady's car back in the spot she pulled it out of.
The look on her face when she came back... to say nothing of the sudden onset of apoplexy when she found her car back in a parking space. She went off on Johnny for a second time, but he just shrugged his shoulders "It was blocking a travel lane, it ain't now"
I'm gonna LIKE this guy.
And then, there was the "delivery" guy. I'm using quotes because that was his attempt to dodge fines/fees for being towed, that we mistakenly towed a delivery driver who was "only there a minute"
Yeah... uh... some issues with that
A. The place you said you deliver for wasn't open when you got towed at 9AM
B. You only got TOWED at 9AM, your car was called in at 8AM and it just took that long to get a free truck down there to nab you
C. You didn't come looking for the car until 11AM, so much for the "just a minute" lie
D. You were in the "ostrich" space. This complex has a garage, and you were at the furthest corner of the lowest level, backed in, and hugging the walls as tightly as you could without knocking off your OTHER rearview mirror (your passenger side one was messily amputated at some point, it looks like, probably your superlative driving skills at work) That's a clear "hope they don't see me" move.
E. You're already in our system as having been ticketed and towed, and those tows have not been voided out as mistaken tows of the delivery guy.
We didn't even have to break a sweat to win that fight.
He ALSO tried to leave the lot without paying, got denied by the drivers working the gate, and raised such a stink about it he was actually told to leave ,as in OFF the property and come back after he's cooled off enough to behave himself. (He apparently was told to go up front and pay, and instead was spotted lingering around the back gate, and tried to walk back in when the next person came by to get their car, hoping we wouldn't notice TWO cars leaving when the office only released ONE)
He did eventually come back and pay, well, drug his girlfriend in to pay (seeing a trend here? It must be worth risking an arrest before having to beg your significant other for cash to fix your f*ckup)
It also makes it pretty clear what you were doing over there for three hours in the morning....
Yeah, you were delivering alright.... delivering the sausage. A heeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy ohhhhhhhhhhh! *rimshot*
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