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Some Folks Just Won't go Quietly
Lady comes in to get her car, the maintenance guys for her apartment called it in because they didn't see a permit in it.
There was one, in the glove box, but due to the fact we all left our comic-book ordered X-ray specs at home today, and the fact none of us hail from Planet Krypton, well, it went unseen, just like her car in that lot after 3pm!
Harsh? Perhaps, but them's the rules. Don't like em? Move to a less draconian landlord's property. (Or more draconian, if that's your thing) The manager was probably willing to knock it down to a drop fee to make it a little more tolerable, but before he could, she went off on him and all that would befall him for enforcing the rules upon her.
There would be Lawsuits!
Blood!
Fire!
Earthquakes!
Pestilence!
Famine!
Bad Seafood!
RERUNS OF "HEE HAW" ON EVERY CHANNEL!
Manager puts his foot down, now it's a full tow, $115 or the car becomes part of our "Donate to Smithsonian Institute as historical artifact in 2050" collection. The lady didn't like this.
*sigh* Okay, top five answers are on the board, LETS PLAY THE FEUD!
Lady- But I live where you towed me from! It's ILLEGAL for you to charge me ANYTHING to get my car back!
Manager - No, it's not, you got towed because you didn't have a visible permit up in your car, as the rules state you must.
Lady - Well, maybe I should call my LAWYER and see what he says!
Manager - Go right ahead, I'm familiar with all the pertinent sections of title 75 of the vehicles code that cover vehicular trespass, so I'll be more than happy to talk to him.
Lady - Well, then maybe I'll call the LANDLORD of that apartment instead! We're friends!
Go right ahead, I've been towing out of there for *drops LandLADY's full name* for 5 years now, I'd be more than happy to talk to her.
Our heroine stomps outside, has a brief cellphone conversation, then comes back in for round 2, FIGHT!
Lady - Well, I just talked to my lawyer and he says it's ILLEGAL for you as a private organization to force me to pay any "fines, tariffs or taxes"!
Manager - Well, fortunately for us, these are FEES!
Lady - ... ... ... ...
TOWING MANAGER WINS! FLAWLESS VICTORY!!!!
Oh but it wasn't over! The lady stomps off and returns an hour or so later and drops a large plastic shopping bag on the counter in front of towing manager.
Lady - HERE!
Manager looks inside the bag, and, much as he suspected from the sound it made when it clanked off the Formica in front of him, it's full of nothing but loose change. Dimes, quarters, nickles, pennies, and probably a few bits of Canadian currency in there too. (Personaly, I think any coin collection automatically mutates and produces a few of those when you aren't looking, because every time I take mine to be counted at the coinstar machine, it spits out a couple Canuck Bucks, even though I KNOW I didn't put them in there!!! Oh well, back to the game)
Manager - We're not taking this
Lady - You have to! It's legal tender!
Manager - We have the right to refuse to take loose change. If it were the last $5 worth, we'd do it, but we're not taking a full $100+ payment like this.
Lady - You WILL take my money!
Manager - Not like that we won't, take it down the street to the bank, have them count it and have them give it to you in bills. If that's the ONLY money you have, that's the ONLY way we're going to mess with it, we're too busy to sit down and count out your pennies right now and I've got no way to store that much change until our next safe drop.
Lady - Well, I'm NOT paying any other way!
Manager - Have it your way then. We'll count them when we have time to do it, but it's getting fairly late in the day, we may not get to it until tomorrow.
Lady - Get the Police!
Manager - Huh?
Lady - You're refusing to take LEGAL TENDER! That's ILLEGAL! Call the cops!
Manager - No, you want them here? You call.
On cue, a nice police officer walked into the office.
Now, we didn't call them, and she hadn't called them, yet here he is...
I guess the universe sometimes has a natural comedic timing that would make a British comedy troupe seethe with envy. Turns out Ossafer Friendly was here to pick up our MV-952 forms, the ones he has to review, sign off on, and mail to the Judge stating that yes, that 98' Buick Regal with no engine and no headlights that we've had in our impound since last August is, most definitively, abandoned and the owner is NOT coming for it, so give the towing company the title so they can ship it off to the great big scrap pile in the sky (or wherever it happens to be, personally I suspect it's mainland China).
So, miss pennybags latches onto the poor cop and relates her story of how we're practically sucking the LIFEBLOOD out of her and if she wants to pay us in wampum and seashells, well, WE HAVE TO TAKE IT! and none of this is fair, and how come all the other kids in school were way more popular than her?!
Ossafer Friendly just wearily shakes his head and tells her it's all a civil matter and he has nothing constructive to add that hasn't already been explained.
Defeated at last, the lady forks over a credit card, having managed to squander several hours of her life that, barring the successful development of time travel, she will never get back.
You're a Loose Cannon for this Department! Argabarga!
Ossafer friendly's arrival segues nicely into our next big bugaboo of the day.
Turns out his Chief is getting a bit tired of fielding calls from concerned citizens alleging that Friendly Neighborhood Towing is running a "scam" operation out of that old closed-down burger joint I've mentioned before.
Yep, almost weekly it seems people we've towed from there are marching straight to his station and declaring that we're doing something illegal by towing from from there, despite the fact that we have four "PERMIT PARKING ONLY" signs up in a 20-space lot, meaning by Borough regulations, we're oversigned by 300% (A fact Ossafer Friendly candidly admits, as he went down there to check that we're up to code)
He says that the Chief is wondering if maybe we're being a bit "excessive" in our enforcement, since statistics we submit to the PD at the end of every month about who we're towing from where indicates that since we took over that lot last year, we've towed nearly 280 cars from there.
Well, faith and begorrah Chief O'Hara, but the populace out there really is that daft indeed!
And, we're only in there 3 times per shift anyway. I'm back to days, so I do that lot three times basically, once first in the morning to tow out the hangover crew from the night before, once around lunch, and once in the afternoon at a random time between class changes on campus that always gets one car with a university commuter parking pass.
You want to see "excessive"? We could probably station a person down there all day and easily DOUBLE that output. Based on the fact that cars frequently drive in, look at me, and leave in a hurry when they see what's going on.
Problem is, people just don't LOOK for signs, they're just that self-centered, all they see is a nice, flat parking lot, right across the street from campus, and bam! In they go, that's the extent to which they think. The only excessive thing here is their excessive ignorance of what they're doing, but, okay, if it will placate your Superior Officer [Roscoe] coo coo cooooooooo! [/Roscoe] we'll put up ANOTHER sign on some free space down there and go over our legal obligations by 400% just to see if they get the message? Sound good?
Spoiler Alert: It didn't work.
The next day, after the 4th sign was installed, we got another angry customer at the counter who INSISTED there were NO SIGNS in that lot....
Why do we even TRY? Somedays, it just don't pay to escape the asylum....
Say "hi" to the Chief for us, as I'm assuming that's your next stop, and, protip, don't call him "stupid" to his face like you just did our towing manager. You may make him and his colleagues less inclined to serve and protect you from a non-legally sanctioned taking of your car in the future.
This Contest Wins you no Prize
-WHY'D I GET TOWED!?
-You didn't have a permit for that lot.
-Well, there's only that one sign at the entrance! That's not enough!
-That's not the only sign in that lot, and, wait, did you just say you SAW our sign at the entrance? But drove in and parked there anyway? Without a permit?
-Yes! There aren't enough signs in that lot! There should be one in front of EVERY space!
-Uh, Ma'm that lot has over 200 spaces in it, there's no feasible way we're going to buy and put up 200 signs, unless you're offering to buy them for us. And, you said you saw the sign and ignored it, so, well, game over.
-Well, I'm contesting this!
-Okay
-Didn't you hear?! I CONTEST THIS! WHERE DO I SIGN THAT I'M FIGHTING THIS?!
-Uh, nowhere. There isn't an option for that.
-No! This is just like a traffic ticket! When the cops write you a ticket you have the option to contest it when you sign it! SO I WILL NOT PAY! I CONTEST THIS! (Oh splendid, another graduate of the Google Law School tm)
-You can't do that, this isn't a citation. Your only option is to either pay $115 or I keep your car until you do. Plus $35 a day in storage.
She paid, they all pay, especially the Hybrid Junior Lawyer/Freedom Fighters.
Why do so many people have delusions that they possess legal minds of such brilliance that we all are risking sunburns by standing next to them? Law school is for more than learning how to properly spell "subpoena". The fact my physician spent more years in school than I did doesn't mean exactly what you apparently THINK it means.
Speaking of which, I did overhear one of the mechanics grousing the other day that doctors make more than him despite the fact they only deal with "One make, two models, and they haven't changed the tooling for YEARS!" My snappy comeback to that? You try replacing that head gasket while the engine's still running!
Quick Rundown of the Rules
-Ordering a sandwich at Subway without mayonnaise? Optional
-Driving around the roadways of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania without a valid license? Not Optional
-Impounding of your vehicle when the police pull you over and realize the above? Mandatory
-Cussing like a sailor when PD calls me for the impound at 4:53pm when I'm supposed to be going home at 5:00? Optional, but strongly recommended.
If THEY Get "It", Why Does NOBODY Else?
So, a couple acne-scarred stoner types were leaning up against a wall next to an illegally parked car, loudly discussing their personal preferences on what substances give the best highs.
(SIDEBAR: That is NOT Argabarga hyperbole, they were discussing the virtues of cheap fixes vs. expensive ones like coke, in broad daylight, in front of a total stranger. They'll probably wonder who "snitched" on them when they eventually get arrested somewhere down the line, convinced the government is illegally spying on them with infrared-scoped predator drones, or that someone "hacked" their facebook page, again..... unaware that the shopping plaza they're across the street from frequently has COPS in MARKED CRUISERS coming and going for lunch... just thought it was worth mentioning.)
Anyway, wanting to be a charitable pawn of Da Man (tm), I ask if it's their car I'm about to nail.
"nope" they say. "But I do have a question" one adds.
Sure, the little imp that follows you around telling you to burn things? He isn't real. Oh, that wasn't your question? Sorry, got ahead of myself, go ahead.
"What's the "deal" down here?"
"Huh?"
"I mean, like, what's the policy down here?"
"You have a permit for this lot or you get towed"
"oh....touche' dude!"
"It really is that simple, honest! I get people who want to argue it all the time, but that's all there is to it I swear."
"cool!"
And there you have it folks! If a guy who constantly has his grey matter oozing out his ears to make room in his head for the stuff he's stuffing up his nose can understand the concept of permit only parking, WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE!?
Lady comes in to get her car, the maintenance guys for her apartment called it in because they didn't see a permit in it.
There was one, in the glove box, but due to the fact we all left our comic-book ordered X-ray specs at home today, and the fact none of us hail from Planet Krypton, well, it went unseen, just like her car in that lot after 3pm!
Harsh? Perhaps, but them's the rules. Don't like em? Move to a less draconian landlord's property. (Or more draconian, if that's your thing) The manager was probably willing to knock it down to a drop fee to make it a little more tolerable, but before he could, she went off on him and all that would befall him for enforcing the rules upon her.
There would be Lawsuits!
Blood!
Fire!
Earthquakes!
Pestilence!
Famine!
Bad Seafood!
RERUNS OF "HEE HAW" ON EVERY CHANNEL!
Manager puts his foot down, now it's a full tow, $115 or the car becomes part of our "Donate to Smithsonian Institute as historical artifact in 2050" collection. The lady didn't like this.
*sigh* Okay, top five answers are on the board, LETS PLAY THE FEUD!
Lady- But I live where you towed me from! It's ILLEGAL for you to charge me ANYTHING to get my car back!
Manager - No, it's not, you got towed because you didn't have a visible permit up in your car, as the rules state you must.
Lady - Well, maybe I should call my LAWYER and see what he says!
Manager - Go right ahead, I'm familiar with all the pertinent sections of title 75 of the vehicles code that cover vehicular trespass, so I'll be more than happy to talk to him.
Lady - Well, then maybe I'll call the LANDLORD of that apartment instead! We're friends!
Go right ahead, I've been towing out of there for *drops LandLADY's full name* for 5 years now, I'd be more than happy to talk to her.
Our heroine stomps outside, has a brief cellphone conversation, then comes back in for round 2, FIGHT!
Lady - Well, I just talked to my lawyer and he says it's ILLEGAL for you as a private organization to force me to pay any "fines, tariffs or taxes"!
Manager - Well, fortunately for us, these are FEES!
Lady - ... ... ... ...
TOWING MANAGER WINS! FLAWLESS VICTORY!!!!
Oh but it wasn't over! The lady stomps off and returns an hour or so later and drops a large plastic shopping bag on the counter in front of towing manager.
Lady - HERE!
Manager looks inside the bag, and, much as he suspected from the sound it made when it clanked off the Formica in front of him, it's full of nothing but loose change. Dimes, quarters, nickles, pennies, and probably a few bits of Canadian currency in there too. (Personaly, I think any coin collection automatically mutates and produces a few of those when you aren't looking, because every time I take mine to be counted at the coinstar machine, it spits out a couple Canuck Bucks, even though I KNOW I didn't put them in there!!! Oh well, back to the game)
Manager - We're not taking this
Lady - You have to! It's legal tender!
Manager - We have the right to refuse to take loose change. If it were the last $5 worth, we'd do it, but we're not taking a full $100+ payment like this.
Lady - You WILL take my money!
Manager - Not like that we won't, take it down the street to the bank, have them count it and have them give it to you in bills. If that's the ONLY money you have, that's the ONLY way we're going to mess with it, we're too busy to sit down and count out your pennies right now and I've got no way to store that much change until our next safe drop.
Lady - Well, I'm NOT paying any other way!
Manager - Have it your way then. We'll count them when we have time to do it, but it's getting fairly late in the day, we may not get to it until tomorrow.
Lady - Get the Police!
Manager - Huh?
Lady - You're refusing to take LEGAL TENDER! That's ILLEGAL! Call the cops!
Manager - No, you want them here? You call.
On cue, a nice police officer walked into the office.
Now, we didn't call them, and she hadn't called them, yet here he is...
I guess the universe sometimes has a natural comedic timing that would make a British comedy troupe seethe with envy. Turns out Ossafer Friendly was here to pick up our MV-952 forms, the ones he has to review, sign off on, and mail to the Judge stating that yes, that 98' Buick Regal with no engine and no headlights that we've had in our impound since last August is, most definitively, abandoned and the owner is NOT coming for it, so give the towing company the title so they can ship it off to the great big scrap pile in the sky (or wherever it happens to be, personally I suspect it's mainland China).
So, miss pennybags latches onto the poor cop and relates her story of how we're practically sucking the LIFEBLOOD out of her and if she wants to pay us in wampum and seashells, well, WE HAVE TO TAKE IT! and none of this is fair, and how come all the other kids in school were way more popular than her?!
Ossafer Friendly just wearily shakes his head and tells her it's all a civil matter and he has nothing constructive to add that hasn't already been explained.
Defeated at last, the lady forks over a credit card, having managed to squander several hours of her life that, barring the successful development of time travel, she will never get back.
You're a Loose Cannon for this Department! Argabarga!
Ossafer friendly's arrival segues nicely into our next big bugaboo of the day.
Turns out his Chief is getting a bit tired of fielding calls from concerned citizens alleging that Friendly Neighborhood Towing is running a "scam" operation out of that old closed-down burger joint I've mentioned before.
Yep, almost weekly it seems people we've towed from there are marching straight to his station and declaring that we're doing something illegal by towing from from there, despite the fact that we have four "PERMIT PARKING ONLY" signs up in a 20-space lot, meaning by Borough regulations, we're oversigned by 300% (A fact Ossafer Friendly candidly admits, as he went down there to check that we're up to code)
He says that the Chief is wondering if maybe we're being a bit "excessive" in our enforcement, since statistics we submit to the PD at the end of every month about who we're towing from where indicates that since we took over that lot last year, we've towed nearly 280 cars from there.
Well, faith and begorrah Chief O'Hara, but the populace out there really is that daft indeed!
And, we're only in there 3 times per shift anyway. I'm back to days, so I do that lot three times basically, once first in the morning to tow out the hangover crew from the night before, once around lunch, and once in the afternoon at a random time between class changes on campus that always gets one car with a university commuter parking pass.
You want to see "excessive"? We could probably station a person down there all day and easily DOUBLE that output. Based on the fact that cars frequently drive in, look at me, and leave in a hurry when they see what's going on.
Problem is, people just don't LOOK for signs, they're just that self-centered, all they see is a nice, flat parking lot, right across the street from campus, and bam! In they go, that's the extent to which they think. The only excessive thing here is their excessive ignorance of what they're doing, but, okay, if it will placate your Superior Officer [Roscoe] coo coo cooooooooo! [/Roscoe] we'll put up ANOTHER sign on some free space down there and go over our legal obligations by 400% just to see if they get the message? Sound good?
Spoiler Alert: It didn't work.
The next day, after the 4th sign was installed, we got another angry customer at the counter who INSISTED there were NO SIGNS in that lot....
Why do we even TRY? Somedays, it just don't pay to escape the asylum....
Say "hi" to the Chief for us, as I'm assuming that's your next stop, and, protip, don't call him "stupid" to his face like you just did our towing manager. You may make him and his colleagues less inclined to serve and protect you from a non-legally sanctioned taking of your car in the future.
This Contest Wins you no Prize
-WHY'D I GET TOWED!?
-You didn't have a permit for that lot.
-Well, there's only that one sign at the entrance! That's not enough!
-That's not the only sign in that lot, and, wait, did you just say you SAW our sign at the entrance? But drove in and parked there anyway? Without a permit?
-Yes! There aren't enough signs in that lot! There should be one in front of EVERY space!
-Uh, Ma'm that lot has over 200 spaces in it, there's no feasible way we're going to buy and put up 200 signs, unless you're offering to buy them for us. And, you said you saw the sign and ignored it, so, well, game over.
-Well, I'm contesting this!
-Okay
-Didn't you hear?! I CONTEST THIS! WHERE DO I SIGN THAT I'M FIGHTING THIS?!
-Uh, nowhere. There isn't an option for that.
-No! This is just like a traffic ticket! When the cops write you a ticket you have the option to contest it when you sign it! SO I WILL NOT PAY! I CONTEST THIS! (Oh splendid, another graduate of the Google Law School tm)
-You can't do that, this isn't a citation. Your only option is to either pay $115 or I keep your car until you do. Plus $35 a day in storage.
She paid, they all pay, especially the Hybrid Junior Lawyer/Freedom Fighters.
Why do so many people have delusions that they possess legal minds of such brilliance that we all are risking sunburns by standing next to them? Law school is for more than learning how to properly spell "subpoena". The fact my physician spent more years in school than I did doesn't mean exactly what you apparently THINK it means.
Speaking of which, I did overhear one of the mechanics grousing the other day that doctors make more than him despite the fact they only deal with "One make, two models, and they haven't changed the tooling for YEARS!" My snappy comeback to that? You try replacing that head gasket while the engine's still running!
Quick Rundown of the Rules
-Ordering a sandwich at Subway without mayonnaise? Optional
-Driving around the roadways of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania without a valid license? Not Optional
-Impounding of your vehicle when the police pull you over and realize the above? Mandatory
-Cussing like a sailor when PD calls me for the impound at 4:53pm when I'm supposed to be going home at 5:00? Optional, but strongly recommended.
If THEY Get "It", Why Does NOBODY Else?
So, a couple acne-scarred stoner types were leaning up against a wall next to an illegally parked car, loudly discussing their personal preferences on what substances give the best highs.
(SIDEBAR: That is NOT Argabarga hyperbole, they were discussing the virtues of cheap fixes vs. expensive ones like coke, in broad daylight, in front of a total stranger. They'll probably wonder who "snitched" on them when they eventually get arrested somewhere down the line, convinced the government is illegally spying on them with infrared-scoped predator drones, or that someone "hacked" their facebook page, again..... unaware that the shopping plaza they're across the street from frequently has COPS in MARKED CRUISERS coming and going for lunch... just thought it was worth mentioning.)
Anyway, wanting to be a charitable pawn of Da Man (tm), I ask if it's their car I'm about to nail.
"nope" they say. "But I do have a question" one adds.
Sure, the little imp that follows you around telling you to burn things? He isn't real. Oh, that wasn't your question? Sorry, got ahead of myself, go ahead.
"What's the "deal" down here?"
"Huh?"
"I mean, like, what's the policy down here?"
"You have a permit for this lot or you get towed"
"oh....touche' dude!"
"It really is that simple, honest! I get people who want to argue it all the time, but that's all there is to it I swear."
"cool!"
And there you have it folks! If a guy who constantly has his grey matter oozing out his ears to make room in his head for the stuff he's stuffing up his nose can understand the concept of permit only parking, WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE!?
GAAHHH!!! NOOOO!!! Anything but that! 
That is actually a very good question. Maybe he's fried the part of their brain relating to narcissism and self-centeredness?
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