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Our yearly town-wide art festival has come and gone, and if you think shutting down most of the streets in tandem with road construction season, thereby making commuting as frustrating as possible in the name of letting artists starve not quite as quickly as they would've otherwise would improve anyone's disposition, that's where you're wrong kiddo.
Behold.
Lead-Off Stupidity
"Why did I get towed?"
"You illegally parked"
"Yeah, they gave me a ticket for that, so why did they then TOW me?"
"Because the ticket was your warning to move, when you didn't, an hour later, they moved the car for you"
"They can DO that? I thought I'd just get the ticket"
Welcome to the real world Buckwheat, where things are known for going from bad to WORSE all the time. Specialy' when you do nothing to correct being wrong when informed that you, are , in fact, wrong.
Clean Up Batter Stupidity
The pavement marks the end of the parking lot.
Parking beyond the pavement is a no-no.
Parking on the grass is a no-no.
Parking on the grass ONE HUNDRED YARDS BEYOND THE PARKING LOT ON THE FAR SIDE OF THAT APARTMENT COMPLEX WHERE THE ONLY PAVING IS MACADAM FOOTPATHS FOUR FOOT WIDE IS AN OH-MY-GOD-WHAT-WERE-YOU-DOING-YOU-ARE-KILLING-ME-SMALLS.
No, the fact it was raining and you didn't want to get wet walking is not an excuse.
Real Fakes, Fake Reals
I get my share of fake permits, as you well know.
Got one the other night from a lot where yet another aspiring artisan didn't seem to notice that all the permits are orange, and not plain white like your printer's copy paper.... how they keep messing this up, I have no idea.
Speaking of "mess up" the guy in charge of Global Domination Reality's parking has done it again.
Hey, here's a joke. How are you, Mr. GDR Parking, exactly like the ex-high school jock with two divorces under his belt, wrecked credit, a rusted out 90s Mustang in the drive and receding hair? Easy. You both spend weekends trying to squeeze yourself into things that don't fit and are blissfully unaware the result, once in public, just looks sad and silly.
In his case, it's a letterman's jacket.
In your case, it was one of the temporary permits you wrote for a tenant.
You apparently wanted it to be good until the 15th, but must've been distracted by a shiny new paperclip on your desktop, and you wrote it as expiring on the 5th instead.
Now, any competent person at this point would trash that permit and pull another blank from the stack of them you probably have in the office, and try again.
You suddenly became mortified at the idea of wasting resources aside from our mutual oxygen supply, and decided to just slide the missing "1" in there anyway in the microscopic area between the hyphen and existing number, and got a permit that looked like
EXPIRES 7-15-17
when it was hung up.
This tripped the fraud-o-meter (tm) as one expects, and the mortified person who paid for that work found themselves towed in that morning, on a good permit that was so shoddily put together, nobody believed it.
You also got another tenant towed by calling in a "Do not tow" order for a "Gold Ford Taurus XYZ-1234" and not the GREY FORD TAURUS XYZ-1221 we towed that night.
You didn't seem to see why this happened..... couldn't we tell it was the same car?
Look, my life advice to you is to get yourself an AK-47, sling it over your shoulder, and stroll around your building menacingly, but casually. If movies have taught me anything, that's when Chuck Norris and his Kung-Fu Kommandos will emerge from the shadows and snap your neck like a nilla wafer, and both you and your stunning life incompetence will no longer be my problem.
It's Not Prohibited, It's a Challenge
Consider that when your landlord puts railroad ties around the perimeter of his property's backyard, that probably means he wants cars to stay out of it.
And when he stacks them two high, that means he REALLY wants you to stay out of it and has anticipated someone with a 4x4 may look at just one log and still think they had a reasonable shot at getting over it.
What he didn't anticipate was you getting into that lot, in an ordinary everyday Chevy Cavalier, by simply taking enough shots at them that you eventually just brushed them aside like a lego brick pile.
From the looks of the dirt, grass, rocks and other debris splayed around, it took you 3 or 4 tries before you punched your way through. And due to the rain we'd received that day and preceding night, your momentum carried you all the way into the middle of the backyard before whatever braking that car has left took effect and stopped you, leaving nice inches-deep sodden trenches behind in that nice yard.
I get that owning a beater car is an incredibly liberating experience (I've owned a few, okay, more than a few, like, pretty much all of them) And it can tempt you to just say Dahellwitit (tm) in situations where a normal person my actually care about not putting a dent in their vehicle. (Yours had dents IN THE ROOF that were there before you tried this).
But you are going to look awfully silly when you find that not only was your car gone when you got back (Twitch was sent after you, and rather than re-trenching the yard with his truck, just decided Dahellwitit (tm) and hooked a winch line on you and DRUG you back to the pavement.) But the landlord was so peeved at you, that not only are you going to have to pay $130 to get the car back (several magnitudes more than what it was already worth) but pay the $80 winching fee, and, your license and info will be forwarded to said landlord after pickup, because he's suing you in small claims court for the costs to relandsacpe the landscape you unlandscaped for him, all because you wanted free parking that was, well, different than the FREE KIND AVAILABLE OUT IN THE STREET. It's perfectly legal out there, why'd you even DO THIS?
See, this is what happens when everyone gets a participation trophy for just waking up in the morning.....
Chalky Aftertaste
And your winner for "most overblown reaction to a mundane setback in life" is, envelope please, this guy!"
Yes, you good Sir, who got towed for hanging out at the Starbucks for two hours and thirty minutes. See, due to having a lot sized so small that it would make an ant colony in Andorra look spacious and airy, S-bucks has a strict 2 hour cap on customer perking (typos are sometimes appropriate, I'm not fixing that one) to keep the spaces turning over at a consistent rate so new customers can come in for theircrack coffee ration.
And you went over the limit. Yes you did.
How do we know you went over? The chalk marks on your tires tell the woeful tale.
Yes, your tires are chalked, a line is drawn from one of them to the ground, and if it's unbroken two hours later, we know you haven't moved. Yes, we put chalk marks on your tires, well, tire, singular, right rear.
Upon learning this, you, oh supreme gentleman, proceeded to boil over like a coffee pot at mission control during the Apollo 13 crisis and huffed "So, you're going to wash my car then?"
"Uh no"
"Well, you just told me you made it dirty! So you better wash it"
"It's chalk, it will rub off after a couple miles, and if you want it done quicker, throw some water on it or drive through a puddle and it will dissolve"
"So you don't see a problem with vandalizing my car?"
"I didn't, nothing was damaged. If you think I did, call the cops"
"You don't care?!"
"About what? Sir, that's how we mark time down there, it hurts nothing and everyone gets the same treatment"
"Well you need to find a BETTER WAY to do this!"
"That is the better way, we used to write the vehicle info down on paper and just compare notes, but people accused us of lying, then we took pictures, and people accused us of violating their privacy and being stalkers, so the chalk is pretty fool proof"
But he didn't hear me, by then, he was already slinging gravel as he left, probably putting stone chips in the quarter panels that nice clean car of his. When he sees them, he'll probably come back to complain about the damage because, say it with me kids: "they weren't there before".
Until then, enjoy your award, as I imagine it wrapped tightly around YOUR NECK!!!!!!
Arguments - Best if Used By
Hello? Oh, Hi Mrs. Columbo. How are things down at Columbo Reality today? You say you have a question for us? Well go ahead, shoot.
Why did we tow one of your tenants when they had a permit up? Uh, I don't think we did that, but, I'll go check, what kind of car is it?
Black Honda? Nope, we don't even have one of those in the lot right now.
Yes, I'm sure, I'm looking out the window right now.
Maybe it was yesterday? Okay, I'll check the Tome of Towing (logbook)
Nope, nothing yesterday.
The day before that? Nope
The day before that? Nope
Before that? Nope
(Ever want to know what it would be like to give Helen Keller a Rubik's Cube? Now you do
)
Okay, look, let me put you on hold here and see if I can find a record of this car
*click* *skim skim skim skim* *Aha, here it is..... towed in.... A MONTH ago? Yeah, and released the same day*
*Click* Okay, found it, looks like that car was towed all the way back in June and the owner came for it the same day.
Yes, that's all I have.
No, I can't "research" it more to find out if the complaint is valid. Well, I can, but that will require me to go to offsite storage and dig up a month-old tow slip from the bankers box it was filed into and shipped off in, a month ago, that will take a while.
And even if I do that, all it will say on it for "reason for tow" is "no permit displayed" not "Ha ha ha, we towed him in even though he has a permit, what's he gonna do? COMPLAIN? WE ARE THE GODS! WE HAVE THE POWER!!!! HA HA HA! We're so evil we don't wash our hands after using the restroom and once killed a Good Humor vendor just to watch him DIE!!!!!"
So retrieving the paperwork won't solve anything. Our contention is, he didn't have a permit, his is that he did, the thing that would resolve it, the car in our lot, left, because he paid for it, and didn't say a thing to us, A MONTH AGO. If you think this is some human rights violation, you're welcome to pay him $130, but we won't.
Yes, I'm serious Mrs. Columbo, there's nothing more I'm going to do here.
You have just one more thing? How do you know we're telling the truth?
Well, what's more likely? That a person got towed, who shouldn't have been, and chose NOT to raise a stink with us, immediately. And chose NOT to raise a stink with you about it, again, immediately. And also didn't have an issue with paying $130 for the privilege of being wronged? And didn't tell you for a month?
Or, one of your tenants forgot to put up a permit. Got towed. Grumbled, groused, but paid the piper, and then, when his credit card statement came due (which happens about a MONTH after payment, doesn't it?) got a serious case of buyers remorse and thought "Aha! I'll just complain about that to my landlord, she's so old, feeble and dumb, she'll HAVE TO BUY IT!"
You say you've now changed your opinion and we were not, in fact, wrong, and your tenant is out of luck?
Good girl, keep it up and you get a cookie! Have a nice day! *click*
Arguments - Best if Used
Don't send us an itemized bill, out of the blue, for "damages" to your car a full two MONTHS after you left. And it was a whopper too. You listed the repair bill, rental car costs, gas, tolls, and the ever popular generalized four figure "inconvenience" fee, all of which you threatened to have to drag us into court for if we don't pony up. Oh, and you wanted your original towing impound fees refunded too, despite that fact that even if we had lit the car up with a flamethrower and left the ashes in an envelope, you would STILL owe us. You did illegally park.
At least you weren't pretending we incinerated your ride.
Instead, you claimed our tow damaged your car's oil pan.
Without getting too technical, losing an oil pan means you've lost all your engine oil and the motor will expire in short order. It's kinda like getting slashed across the throat, instantaneously fatal to anyone except hockey players who would at least finish their shift before bleeding out and would probably return by the 3rd period anyway.
So, if we did damage your car's oil pan, it would have been obvious the day you came and picked it up when the motor hand grenades due to lack of internal lubrication. If you're lucky, you may get 10 minutes and/or 3 miles down the road before it happens, but like a compound fracture, it's pretty darn obvious something is seriously wrong IMMEDIATELY. Not weeks later. If it did hand grenade due to damage, that was caused by something in the 15 minutes you were last driving.
So we didn't do it, and extorting us out of the blue strangely doesn't make us very receptive to the idea we MIGHT have done it and would at least take a look to at least humor you. Instead we wrote "LOL SRSLY?" on your ransom note and mailed it back to you.
Along with pictures of the signs in the lot you illegally parked in that say "Violators towed at their own risk and expense"
Your lawyer can explain what that means, I'll assume your tendency to commit barratry means you know a few, and they probably know you too and facepalm and reach for the Zantac tablets whenever their secretary says you're on the line again....
Gatecrashers
You know how sometimes, there's a disembodied voice sounding in your head? One that sounds an awful lot like some dignified and clean-shaven professor type from a 1950's educational reel? And he's scolding "That would be a bad idea Jimmy, a very bad idea!" when you start to do something that puts you in mortal peril, but your conscious self didn't realize it at the time?
Like when you almost took that first step down the basement staircase in the pitch black, before the voice warned you to turn the lights on? Or almost blindly threw that wadded up paper towel onto an open stove burner and not the garbage can because you temporarily lost track of left and right in the kitchen, before the voice told you to look first? Or realized you might have just driven into a bad neighborhood because suddenly the only businesses in the strip malls were pawn shops and SubWay franchises? And the voice told you "gas pedal is the long one on the far right"? Yeah, that voice, know it well do you?
Some people, don't have that voice. Instead, they have a voice that I imagine sounds like a composite of Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and every drunken frat boy you ever met saying "Do it ya pussy!" "DO EEET!!" "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
And they've been listening....
There can be no other reason why two people this week attempted to blow through the impound lot gate, sure this would lead them to freedom from a towing bill.
First guy thought he was slick, and was going to pull the "I just need my wallet out of the car" scam, and try to drive out before the gate could close behind him after walking in.
Seeing as he had a 20 year old Toyota that didn't have much acceleration when it was new, let alone a living fossil of the Skater Boy and Grunge Band era, meant it wasn't nimble enough to get backed up and turned around before said gate shut.
He decided to hit it anyway. And accomplished nothing but scratching his bumper and temporarily knocking the gate off it's track.
He then had the balls to demand it be put back on the track so he could leave.
Yeah, since he made it to his car alive, he argued this was "false arrest" to hold him if he wanted to leave.
Oh, false arrest? Our bad, here, have a REAL one we just called the cops.
Responding officer shows up and tells our, ahem, fascinating SPECIMEN of humanity that he has caused damage (to his car, we already fixed the gate) while driving and he's going to be written up for an accident and see his insurance rates hike and cited for disorderly conduct and see himself in court in a month, or, we could all "forget" this happened if he pays his damn bill like he should have, quietly, and RIGHT THE FRIG NOW.
At least he took that option....
The next guy was even more commando about it. Technically, the impound lot is "secure" insofar as 99 out of 100 people realize that locked gate means do not enter, but that won't really stop you if you feel up to scaling a ten foot privacy fence from the sidewalk side, or a nasty rusty chain link fence that's also first-down-yardage deep in unkempt bushes and foliage from the other three sides.
But some people are just determined to work for their felony....
So, when Doc was on his way back to the impound with a car, and hit the open button, and found himself staring not into a hole in the fence to drive through, but a hole occupied by an idling black Lexus that was trying to leave, and had apparently been waiting on the other side of the gate for who knows how long for it to open, he was only perplexed for a moment before he put 2 and 2 together and got out and assblasted the guy to get the bleep out of his car and the bleep out of our lot until he bleeping paid his bleeping bleepity bleep bill.
Mr Lexus driver was unfazed
"NO! You had no right to tow me! This is THEFT and this is ILLEGAL DETAINMENT and I am going to CALL THE COPS!"
Go ahead, it'll save me from having to do it, and you can explain to the Officer exactly which wall you climbed over to defeat security and get in here, which, is trespassing, and attempted theft of services.
If you want to self-paddywagon, be our guest.
Mr. Lexus suddenly got fazed (possibly because he heard that 3rd voice you sometimes hear in your head, the one that sounds like Morgan Freeman and tends to only say three words: "Wow, you're f*cked") and begrudgingly got out of the car and paid his tow bill.
But for the record, he wanted it known it was NOT his fault he illegally parked. He was having a "diabetic emergency"
One so dire, that within 15 minutes of it, he was apparently out of the hospital and healthy enough to walk 6 blocks, jump a fence and steal a car....
Much like celery-flavored Jell-O, I ain't buyin' that.
Randy's Spoiled Brat and Grown Child Daycare
I don't know what it is about Randy.
Maybe it's his rather clean-cut appearance? Or his demeanor? Or his age?
What I'm getting at is, while myself and the other towers only attract juvenile pejoratives when someone gets mad at us, people who get mad at Randy have the uncontrollable urge to play family counselor with him.
I get insults, he gets a very special episode (tm) of Dr Phil
With me, it's all a stream of "Nazi!" "Jerk!" "Asshole!" , like they're cataloging victims from a KKK rally that got out of hand as another fresh bleeder is hauled in to triage.
With Randy, it's "I HOPE YOUR KIDS ARE PROUD OF YOU!" and "ARE YOU MARRIED? BECAUSE I HOPE YOUR WIFE KNOWS HOW YOU TREAT OTHERS!!!!"
We have discussed this at length and just can't seem to figure out why he attracts people who want to quiz him on his home life, while with me, people don't even care when the last time was that I got any.
Well, it happened again. Randy hooked a car in a "permit only" lot that was, yes, right in front of the "permit only" sign.
Naturally, this caused the owner to magically materialize out of the ether and start spinning the usual sob story: She was only there for like a minute (it's been 20 since the car was called in) and didn't know she couldn't park there (despite parking in front of the big NO sign) and Randy is about as receptive to it all as Caesar was to the long list of questions and concerns the Gauls had when he marched into town. (i.e. not much)
This made the illegally parked lady very angry with him, and as people are strangely wont to do, began to criticize his parenting ability.
"Do you have kids?!" she asked
Randy, sure where this was heading (well I hope they're PROUD of you!) decided to cut her off at the pass.
"Yes, one is 12, the other is 8, and I'm very proud of them, unlike you, they can read signs that say no parking"
"Well, you're MEAN! I was only here for like, a minute!"
"Nope, it was twenty. Know what? My kids can tell time too"
She didn't get any sunnier, but the lies at least stopped after that.
Kudos Randy, I think your kids will be just fine. I mean, you got them that pedal-powered kiddie car that looks like a tow truck for Christmas a few years back, I'll certainly hire them , they'd out tow a few grown (allegedly) adults (also alleged) around here that I have to deal with on a nightly basis.
Defective People Make Defective Complaints
Complaints about 'damages' on cars are a fact of life here. The reliability of your average car is so good these days that you can practically weld the hood shut and go for years until something breaks, so most people don't ever give their car a second glance.
Therefore, when they get towed and actually LOOK at it closely for the first time in several papacies, they freak out because that loose piece of door trim, that's clearly weathered even behind where the GM-quality adhesive has failed, was something we just did LAST NIGHT!!! I KNOW IT!!!!! (You touched it last syndrome, bane of computer techs AND tow truck drivers nationwide)
You eventually get jaded by this so that only the really really ODD ones start to blip your radar.
Like complaining about dents in the roof.
Even the guy in that junk kamikaze Cavalier that HAD dents on the roof didn't try and pin that one on us, but this guy did. Via email. A week after he left.
He called us to complain we owed him for denting his roof.
Yeah, uh, considering I towed it, and no towing equipment ever touches that part of the car, and the roof of my F-450 plus lightbar on top, is a good couple feet HIGHER than the roof of your towed Honda Fit, how exactly did I manage that?
I mean, if I HAD hit something while towing that dented your roof, my boss wouldn't be complaining about it to my face, he'd be complaining about it to the geyser of blood coming from my fresh new neck-hole where my head used to be because that would require me driving into something that would have taken the top 4 feet of this truck clean off even with the rearview mirrors...... and granted I don't remember last week very well, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen.
You lose, good day Sir.
Then there was the guy complaining about the smell.
Yes, he called to tell us his car now had an odd smell on the inside that it "didn't have before"
We told him that since we didn't get into the car, there's no way that it could be our fault.
He was insistent, "You had it last"
Okay, fine, drive it in here and we'll take a whiff
You can't? You're currently on the road outside Poughkeepsie, New York?
Well how bad can it be? We can't smell you from there. *click*
JOBZ JOBZ JOBZ
I feel like a politician sometimes, given the frequency with which I end up talking about jobs with strangers in public.
I get told to find a "Real" job I get told that I'm making life hard for people with jobs, I get asked how I ever found this job, asked if I like my job, told I should quit my job etc etc etc, why it's enough for me to go up to campus and ask for an honorary degree in business.
You can add another check to the bingo card, just got told this week to "find a better job" by an angry guy.
He got even angrier when I asked if he was hiring.
Yes, I'm probably slowly talking my way into a gunshot, but you only live once.
And the whole reason he was angry? I towed him for having an expired permit, as in it expired in December, and he didn't see why still trying to use it in July was a problem, because "it's for the same lot!" and "nobody was using that spot"
Irony - he just showed why I HAVE a job by his lack of problem solving.
The Phantom Manager
Not sure exactly what this charming lady did to make her landlord mad enough to tow her off the property, permit, car and all. Probably because she gave him a check for the parking rent that was printed on paper made from a rubber tree, that usually does it.
This greatly confused said lady, as she just could NOT understand how we could charge her to get her car out of impound since "she (sic) had a permit!" Trying to impress upon her that she needs to sort out some obvious issue between her and the party that issued said permit did nothing to change this. She was adamant that since she had a permit, she couldn't be towed and we couldn't charge her to get the car back.
That part of the phone call took 10 minutes to resolve, yes, she just kept repeating herself for ten minutes straight that "she had a permit". whatever Manager said, it was simply ignored and retorted with "But I had a permit....". For ten glorious minutes. I think he was actually bored or just toying with her for curiosity's sake.
But even he had his fill and around the 11 minute mark told her that this has gone on long enough, pay up or we keep the car until it's old enough to make it's own decisions in life and we send it down the road on it's own without you.
She went apoplectic.
NO! I WANT MY CAR AND I'M GETTING IT FOR FREE!
No
YOUR THE MANAGER! DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!
I just did, $130 or we keep it
NO! I WANT YOU TO DO SOMETHING! YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING ELSE!
Nope
YOU CAN'T DO SOMETHING ELSE?!
Nope
REALLY? YOU CAN'T HELP ME OUT HERE
Nope
YOU CAN'T HELP ME?
Nope
YOU CAN'T, YOU REALLY CAN'T??????
Okay, let me put it this way, maybe I can, but I won't.
I WANT THE MANAGER!!!!
Speaking
I WANT YOUR MANAGER
Don't have one
YES YOU DO!
No, I don't, I am the Towing Manager, I am in charge of towng, there's no one else here I can give you to higher than me
NO!!! I WANT YOUR MANAGER AND I WANT HIM NOW!!!
You have him!
NO!!!!!!!! I WANT SOMEONE ELSE!!!!!!
So he transferred her to the bodyshop manager, who sent her right back.
I WANT A MANAGER!!!!
So he transferred her to the service department manager, who sent her right back.
You can see where this is going?
He eventually sent her to the Parts Department Manager, the Service Tech Manager and the Billing Department Manager, who to a man/woman/mutant, just sent her back to the Towing Manager when she started chimping at them over the phone about a problem with "towing" - go figure.
So, after thirty minutes, yes, 30, she had talked to every manager in the building, and surprise surprise, the Towing Manager really WAS the one in charge of towing, just like he said.
And that's when she learned her lesson, right? HA HA HA HAHAHAAAAAA No. That's' when she hung up and sicced her boyfriend on us. And the whole cycle gloriously repeated itself anew.
Circle of Life my friends.... circle of life.....
I WANT OUT! GET ME A LIFE MANAGER!!!!
But I Had to Commit Fraud, We Were out of Money!
Speaking of bad permits, let me introduce the fakest fake of the fake bunch encountered this month.
Ahem, instead of black printing on white plastic, this one was black felt-tip marker, drawing by hand with no straight edge assist, on a piece of white corrugated cardboard, that was only white on the one side, the backside was brown. And it's not like these were block letters either, this was a Wrong Side of the Tracks reality property, WSOTT permits have held over their graphic design from when they were first formed as a company in what looks like the late 60's, given the font on them that says "WSOTT" is a little too , well, swoopy and "Groovy" to be a modern invention. And trying to duplicate that, by hand, along with the fact the big letters are gradient-shaded, was a bit beyond your artistic ability. It looked like a five year old drew that.
Naturally, this one didn't pass the laugh test, but it did, thankfully, just barely pass the "piss your trousers from laughing too hard" test, that would've been unfortunate for all involved because as I'm stunned looking at the thing, I fail to notice my presence has alerted the bro responsible for the work, and he comes running out of the house.
I tell him to move the car, he doesn't have a permit for the lot. Then I get the whammy.
"Uh, yeah I do, right there"
"That's not a permit"
"But"
"No it isn't, it's a fake, you KNOW it's a fake, do not insult me"
"But.... but.."
"No "buts", you move this car now or I'm towing it"
"But..."
"But what?"
"Well.... I .... I had to make my own, the office wasn't open so I couldn't get a real one"
....
....
Oh, well, why didn't you tell me that? I mean, that changes everything! Because you twaddled around all week and didn't realize until the Friday night party had commenced that: "hey, the office that hands out permits closed a couple hours ago" And you just charitably decided that it was THEIR fault so you could just do whatever the fark you wanted!
Hey, that gives me an idea! Next time I wanna get money out of the bank, but it's closed because of one of those weird Holidays that only bankers and Federal Agents get to take (like Columbus Day or National Ex Jocks With Receding Hairline Appreciation Day) I can just draw my own $20 bills! Right?! I mean, if your'e right tHEn I muSt be toO!
*VZZZZZZTTT* (Spoiler: That is the sound of a human brain melting)
WA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
Brilliant!
ANyone want a loan? I'm good for it!
I'm good for ALL of them!
Wanna Benjamin? I can make ya one!
Want $500? DONE!
Want $58.35? I'll make you a bill for that too!!! See?! It's got Sprio Agnew's picture on it, that way you know it's good!!!!!
I can practically bail out Greece over here! All I need is a pen and a piece of paper and world hunger is SOLVED!!!! Zimbabwe thinks a hundred million dollar note is excessive? I'll show em!
LOOK OUT WORLD! HERE COMES CAPTAIN MONEYBAGS!!!! HE SHOOTS STREAMS OF LIQUID DINERO FROM HIS EYEBALLS!!! HE DROWNS HIS ENEMIES IN ACRES OF LOOSE CHANGE!!! GET ON HIS SIDE!!! YOU'LL NEVER LOSE AT MONOPOLY AGAIN!!! AND I DON'T JUST MEAN THE PARKER-BROTHERS KIND!!! YEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH!!!!
And then I woke up from THAT daydream. And back into the nightmare that is towing and dealing with people like this.
Send help and/or a bottle of cheap booze, please.
But I had to Illegally Park, I'm Illegally Subletting!
While on patrol I notice a car at one of Global Domination Reality's many tyranny substations.
No, that's not what's unusual, you see a LOT of cars at Global Domination Reality properties, but this one I knew didn't belong. Yellow cars stick out, and they stick out even more when they have Wyoming license plates, that's from all the way on the other end of the country where the horses outnumber the people (but don't let them know, they may get cocky and revolt). SO I knew I had a real loser here, I'd remember this one if they were a tenant, but I'll check anyway. Yep, no permit. Slap, slap, and go....
By the time that car was dumped at the impound and the paperwork filled out, the owner was already in the office - complaining with Towing Manager.
"Why did I get towed?"
"You don't have a permit for that lot"
"But I LIVE there"
"Then you need to get a permit, even if you live there, tenants must have permits in their cars. it's in the rules, the signs say so."
"But I can't GET one, I'm subletting!"
"Global Domination Reality doesn't allow subletting, so you aren't even a tenant, you should have known better"
"Well, I still don't think this was very fair, who do I complain to about this?"
"Nobody, the fee is the fee, pay it or you don't get your car"
Pros - Short, sweet, to the point and she paid.
Cons - Her whole argument seemed to be that the rules don't apply when you break them...
Scary - She's still at large out there in the world, and her vote counts just as much as yours in any and all elections. Sleep tight!
You've been a lovely audience, tip your waitstaff and enjoy the meal!!! Next show is at 9 sharp!
Behold.
Lead-Off Stupidity
"Why did I get towed?"
"You illegally parked"
"Yeah, they gave me a ticket for that, so why did they then TOW me?"
"Because the ticket was your warning to move, when you didn't, an hour later, they moved the car for you"
"They can DO that? I thought I'd just get the ticket"
Welcome to the real world Buckwheat, where things are known for going from bad to WORSE all the time. Specialy' when you do nothing to correct being wrong when informed that you, are , in fact, wrong.
Clean Up Batter Stupidity
The pavement marks the end of the parking lot.
Parking beyond the pavement is a no-no.
Parking on the grass is a no-no.
Parking on the grass ONE HUNDRED YARDS BEYOND THE PARKING LOT ON THE FAR SIDE OF THAT APARTMENT COMPLEX WHERE THE ONLY PAVING IS MACADAM FOOTPATHS FOUR FOOT WIDE IS AN OH-MY-GOD-WHAT-WERE-YOU-DOING-YOU-ARE-KILLING-ME-SMALLS.
No, the fact it was raining and you didn't want to get wet walking is not an excuse.
Real Fakes, Fake Reals
I get my share of fake permits, as you well know.
Got one the other night from a lot where yet another aspiring artisan didn't seem to notice that all the permits are orange, and not plain white like your printer's copy paper.... how they keep messing this up, I have no idea.
Speaking of "mess up" the guy in charge of Global Domination Reality's parking has done it again.
Hey, here's a joke. How are you, Mr. GDR Parking, exactly like the ex-high school jock with two divorces under his belt, wrecked credit, a rusted out 90s Mustang in the drive and receding hair? Easy. You both spend weekends trying to squeeze yourself into things that don't fit and are blissfully unaware the result, once in public, just looks sad and silly.
In his case, it's a letterman's jacket.
In your case, it was one of the temporary permits you wrote for a tenant.
You apparently wanted it to be good until the 15th, but must've been distracted by a shiny new paperclip on your desktop, and you wrote it as expiring on the 5th instead.
Now, any competent person at this point would trash that permit and pull another blank from the stack of them you probably have in the office, and try again.
You suddenly became mortified at the idea of wasting resources aside from our mutual oxygen supply, and decided to just slide the missing "1" in there anyway in the microscopic area between the hyphen and existing number, and got a permit that looked like
EXPIRES 7-15-17
when it was hung up.
This tripped the fraud-o-meter (tm) as one expects, and the mortified person who paid for that work found themselves towed in that morning, on a good permit that was so shoddily put together, nobody believed it.
You also got another tenant towed by calling in a "Do not tow" order for a "Gold Ford Taurus XYZ-1234" and not the GREY FORD TAURUS XYZ-1221 we towed that night.
You didn't seem to see why this happened..... couldn't we tell it was the same car?
Look, my life advice to you is to get yourself an AK-47, sling it over your shoulder, and stroll around your building menacingly, but casually. If movies have taught me anything, that's when Chuck Norris and his Kung-Fu Kommandos will emerge from the shadows and snap your neck like a nilla wafer, and both you and your stunning life incompetence will no longer be my problem.
It's Not Prohibited, It's a Challenge
Consider that when your landlord puts railroad ties around the perimeter of his property's backyard, that probably means he wants cars to stay out of it.
And when he stacks them two high, that means he REALLY wants you to stay out of it and has anticipated someone with a 4x4 may look at just one log and still think they had a reasonable shot at getting over it.
What he didn't anticipate was you getting into that lot, in an ordinary everyday Chevy Cavalier, by simply taking enough shots at them that you eventually just brushed them aside like a lego brick pile.
From the looks of the dirt, grass, rocks and other debris splayed around, it took you 3 or 4 tries before you punched your way through. And due to the rain we'd received that day and preceding night, your momentum carried you all the way into the middle of the backyard before whatever braking that car has left took effect and stopped you, leaving nice inches-deep sodden trenches behind in that nice yard.
I get that owning a beater car is an incredibly liberating experience (I've owned a few, okay, more than a few, like, pretty much all of them) And it can tempt you to just say Dahellwitit (tm) in situations where a normal person my actually care about not putting a dent in their vehicle. (Yours had dents IN THE ROOF that were there before you tried this).
But you are going to look awfully silly when you find that not only was your car gone when you got back (Twitch was sent after you, and rather than re-trenching the yard with his truck, just decided Dahellwitit (tm) and hooked a winch line on you and DRUG you back to the pavement.) But the landlord was so peeved at you, that not only are you going to have to pay $130 to get the car back (several magnitudes more than what it was already worth) but pay the $80 winching fee, and, your license and info will be forwarded to said landlord after pickup, because he's suing you in small claims court for the costs to relandsacpe the landscape you unlandscaped for him, all because you wanted free parking that was, well, different than the FREE KIND AVAILABLE OUT IN THE STREET. It's perfectly legal out there, why'd you even DO THIS?
See, this is what happens when everyone gets a participation trophy for just waking up in the morning.....
Chalky Aftertaste
And your winner for "most overblown reaction to a mundane setback in life" is, envelope please, this guy!"
Yes, you good Sir, who got towed for hanging out at the Starbucks for two hours and thirty minutes. See, due to having a lot sized so small that it would make an ant colony in Andorra look spacious and airy, S-bucks has a strict 2 hour cap on customer perking (typos are sometimes appropriate, I'm not fixing that one) to keep the spaces turning over at a consistent rate so new customers can come in for their
And you went over the limit. Yes you did.
How do we know you went over? The chalk marks on your tires tell the woeful tale.
Yes, your tires are chalked, a line is drawn from one of them to the ground, and if it's unbroken two hours later, we know you haven't moved. Yes, we put chalk marks on your tires, well, tire, singular, right rear.
Upon learning this, you, oh supreme gentleman, proceeded to boil over like a coffee pot at mission control during the Apollo 13 crisis and huffed "So, you're going to wash my car then?"
"Uh no"
"Well, you just told me you made it dirty! So you better wash it"
"It's chalk, it will rub off after a couple miles, and if you want it done quicker, throw some water on it or drive through a puddle and it will dissolve"
"So you don't see a problem with vandalizing my car?"
"I didn't, nothing was damaged. If you think I did, call the cops"
"You don't care?!"
"About what? Sir, that's how we mark time down there, it hurts nothing and everyone gets the same treatment"
"Well you need to find a BETTER WAY to do this!"
"That is the better way, we used to write the vehicle info down on paper and just compare notes, but people accused us of lying, then we took pictures, and people accused us of violating their privacy and being stalkers, so the chalk is pretty fool proof"
But he didn't hear me, by then, he was already slinging gravel as he left, probably putting stone chips in the quarter panels that nice clean car of his. When he sees them, he'll probably come back to complain about the damage because,
say it with me kids: "they weren't there before". Until then, enjoy your award, as I imagine it wrapped tightly around YOUR NECK!!!!!!
Arguments - Best if Used By
Hello? Oh, Hi Mrs. Columbo. How are things down at Columbo Reality today? You say you have a question for us? Well go ahead, shoot.
Why did we tow one of your tenants when they had a permit up? Uh, I don't think we did that, but, I'll go check, what kind of car is it?
Black Honda? Nope, we don't even have one of those in the lot right now.
Yes, I'm sure, I'm looking out the window right now.
Maybe it was yesterday? Okay, I'll check the Tome of Towing (logbook)
Nope, nothing yesterday.
The day before that? Nope
The day before that? Nope
Before that? Nope
(Ever want to know what it would be like to give Helen Keller a Rubik's Cube? Now you do
)Okay, look, let me put you on hold here and see if I can find a record of this car
*click* *skim skim skim skim* *Aha, here it is..... towed in.... A MONTH ago? Yeah, and released the same day*
*Click* Okay, found it, looks like that car was towed all the way back in June and the owner came for it the same day.
Yes, that's all I have.
No, I can't "research" it more to find out if the complaint is valid. Well, I can, but that will require me to go to offsite storage and dig up a month-old tow slip from the bankers box it was filed into and shipped off in, a month ago, that will take a while.
And even if I do that, all it will say on it for "reason for tow" is "no permit displayed" not "Ha ha ha, we towed him in even though he has a permit, what's he gonna do? COMPLAIN? WE ARE THE GODS! WE HAVE THE POWER!!!! HA HA HA! We're so evil we don't wash our hands after using the restroom and once killed a Good Humor vendor just to watch him DIE!!!!!"
So retrieving the paperwork won't solve anything. Our contention is, he didn't have a permit, his is that he did, the thing that would resolve it, the car in our lot, left, because he paid for it, and didn't say a thing to us, A MONTH AGO. If you think this is some human rights violation, you're welcome to pay him $130, but we won't.
Yes, I'm serious Mrs. Columbo, there's nothing more I'm going to do here.
You have just one more thing? How do you know we're telling the truth?
Well, what's more likely? That a person got towed, who shouldn't have been, and chose NOT to raise a stink with us, immediately. And chose NOT to raise a stink with you about it, again, immediately. And also didn't have an issue with paying $130 for the privilege of being wronged? And didn't tell you for a month?
Or, one of your tenants forgot to put up a permit. Got towed. Grumbled, groused, but paid the piper, and then, when his credit card statement came due (which happens about a MONTH after payment, doesn't it?) got a serious case of buyers remorse and thought "Aha! I'll just complain about that to my landlord, she's so old, feeble and dumb, she'll HAVE TO BUY IT!"
You say you've now changed your opinion and we were not, in fact, wrong, and your tenant is out of luck?
Good girl, keep it up and you get a cookie! Have a nice day! *click*
Arguments - Best if Used
Don't send us an itemized bill, out of the blue, for "damages" to your car a full two MONTHS after you left. And it was a whopper too. You listed the repair bill, rental car costs, gas, tolls, and the ever popular generalized four figure "inconvenience" fee, all of which you threatened to have to drag us into court for if we don't pony up. Oh, and you wanted your original towing impound fees refunded too, despite that fact that even if we had lit the car up with a flamethrower and left the ashes in an envelope, you would STILL owe us. You did illegally park.
At least you weren't pretending we incinerated your ride.
Instead, you claimed our tow damaged your car's oil pan.
Without getting too technical, losing an oil pan means you've lost all your engine oil and the motor will expire in short order. It's kinda like getting slashed across the throat, instantaneously fatal to anyone except hockey players who would at least finish their shift before bleeding out and would probably return by the 3rd period anyway.
So, if we did damage your car's oil pan, it would have been obvious the day you came and picked it up when the motor hand grenades due to lack of internal lubrication. If you're lucky, you may get 10 minutes and/or 3 miles down the road before it happens, but like a compound fracture, it's pretty darn obvious something is seriously wrong IMMEDIATELY. Not weeks later. If it did hand grenade due to damage, that was caused by something in the 15 minutes you were last driving.
So we didn't do it, and extorting us out of the blue strangely doesn't make us very receptive to the idea we MIGHT have done it and would at least take a look to at least humor you. Instead we wrote "LOL SRSLY?" on your ransom note and mailed it back to you.
Along with pictures of the signs in the lot you illegally parked in that say "Violators towed at their own risk and expense"
Your lawyer can explain what that means, I'll assume your tendency to commit barratry means you know a few, and they probably know you too and facepalm and reach for the Zantac tablets whenever their secretary says you're on the line again....
Gatecrashers
You know how sometimes, there's a disembodied voice sounding in your head? One that sounds an awful lot like some dignified and clean-shaven professor type from a 1950's educational reel? And he's scolding "That would be a bad idea Jimmy, a very bad idea!" when you start to do something that puts you in mortal peril, but your conscious self didn't realize it at the time?
Like when you almost took that first step down the basement staircase in the pitch black, before the voice warned you to turn the lights on? Or almost blindly threw that wadded up paper towel onto an open stove burner and not the garbage can because you temporarily lost track of left and right in the kitchen, before the voice told you to look first? Or realized you might have just driven into a bad neighborhood because suddenly the only businesses in the strip malls were pawn shops and SubWay franchises? And the voice told you "gas pedal is the long one on the far right"? Yeah, that voice, know it well do you?
Some people, don't have that voice. Instead, they have a voice that I imagine sounds like a composite of Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and every drunken frat boy you ever met saying "Do it ya pussy!" "DO EEET!!" "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
And they've been listening....
There can be no other reason why two people this week attempted to blow through the impound lot gate, sure this would lead them to freedom from a towing bill.
First guy thought he was slick, and was going to pull the "I just need my wallet out of the car" scam, and try to drive out before the gate could close behind him after walking in.
Seeing as he had a 20 year old Toyota that didn't have much acceleration when it was new, let alone a living fossil of the Skater Boy and Grunge Band era, meant it wasn't nimble enough to get backed up and turned around before said gate shut.
He decided to hit it anyway. And accomplished nothing but scratching his bumper and temporarily knocking the gate off it's track.
He then had the balls to demand it be put back on the track so he could leave.
Yeah, since he made it to his car alive, he argued this was "false arrest" to hold him if he wanted to leave.
Oh, false arrest? Our bad, here, have a REAL one we just called the cops.
Responding officer shows up and tells our, ahem, fascinating SPECIMEN of humanity that he has caused damage (to his car, we already fixed the gate) while driving and he's going to be written up for an accident and see his insurance rates hike and cited for disorderly conduct and see himself in court in a month, or, we could all "forget" this happened if he pays his damn bill like he should have, quietly, and RIGHT THE FRIG NOW.
At least he took that option....
The next guy was even more commando about it. Technically, the impound lot is "secure" insofar as 99 out of 100 people realize that locked gate means do not enter, but that won't really stop you if you feel up to scaling a ten foot privacy fence from the sidewalk side, or a nasty rusty chain link fence that's also first-down-yardage deep in unkempt bushes and foliage from the other three sides.
But some people are just determined to work for their felony....
So, when Doc was on his way back to the impound with a car, and hit the open button, and found himself staring not into a hole in the fence to drive through, but a hole occupied by an idling black Lexus that was trying to leave, and had apparently been waiting on the other side of the gate for who knows how long for it to open, he was only perplexed for a moment before he put 2 and 2 together and got out and assblasted the guy to get the bleep out of his car and the bleep out of our lot until he bleeping paid his bleeping bleepity bleep bill.
Mr Lexus driver was unfazed
"NO! You had no right to tow me! This is THEFT and this is ILLEGAL DETAINMENT and I am going to CALL THE COPS!"
Go ahead, it'll save me from having to do it, and you can explain to the Officer exactly which wall you climbed over to defeat security and get in here, which, is trespassing, and attempted theft of services.
If you want to self-paddywagon, be our guest.
Mr. Lexus suddenly got fazed (possibly because he heard that 3rd voice you sometimes hear in your head, the one that sounds like Morgan Freeman and tends to only say three words: "Wow, you're f*cked") and begrudgingly got out of the car and paid his tow bill.
But for the record, he wanted it known it was NOT his fault he illegally parked. He was having a "diabetic emergency"
One so dire, that within 15 minutes of it, he was apparently out of the hospital and healthy enough to walk 6 blocks, jump a fence and steal a car....
Much like celery-flavored Jell-O, I ain't buyin' that.
Randy's Spoiled Brat and Grown Child Daycare
I don't know what it is about Randy.
Maybe it's his rather clean-cut appearance? Or his demeanor? Or his age?
What I'm getting at is, while myself and the other towers only attract juvenile pejoratives when someone gets mad at us, people who get mad at Randy have the uncontrollable urge to play family counselor with him.
I get insults, he gets a very special episode (tm) of Dr Phil
With me, it's all a stream of "Nazi!" "Jerk!" "Asshole!" , like they're cataloging victims from a KKK rally that got out of hand as another fresh bleeder is hauled in to triage.
With Randy, it's "I HOPE YOUR KIDS ARE PROUD OF YOU!" and "ARE YOU MARRIED? BECAUSE I HOPE YOUR WIFE KNOWS HOW YOU TREAT OTHERS!!!!"
We have discussed this at length and just can't seem to figure out why he attracts people who want to quiz him on his home life, while with me, people don't even care when the last time was that I got any.
Well, it happened again. Randy hooked a car in a "permit only" lot that was, yes, right in front of the "permit only" sign.
Naturally, this caused the owner to magically materialize out of the ether and start spinning the usual sob story: She was only there for like a minute (it's been 20 since the car was called in) and didn't know she couldn't park there (despite parking in front of the big NO sign) and Randy is about as receptive to it all as Caesar was to the long list of questions and concerns the Gauls had when he marched into town. (i.e. not much)
This made the illegally parked lady very angry with him, and as people are strangely wont to do, began to criticize his parenting ability.
"Do you have kids?!" she asked
Randy, sure where this was heading (well I hope they're PROUD of you!) decided to cut her off at the pass.
"Yes, one is 12, the other is 8, and I'm very proud of them, unlike you, they can read signs that say no parking"
"Well, you're MEAN! I was only here for like, a minute!"
"Nope, it was twenty. Know what? My kids can tell time too"
She didn't get any sunnier, but the lies at least stopped after that.
Kudos Randy, I think your kids will be just fine. I mean, you got them that pedal-powered kiddie car that looks like a tow truck for Christmas a few years back, I'll certainly hire them , they'd out tow a few grown (allegedly) adults (also alleged) around here that I have to deal with on a nightly basis.
Defective People Make Defective Complaints
Complaints about 'damages' on cars are a fact of life here. The reliability of your average car is so good these days that you can practically weld the hood shut and go for years until something breaks, so most people don't ever give their car a second glance.
Therefore, when they get towed and actually LOOK at it closely for the first time in several papacies, they freak out because that loose piece of door trim, that's clearly weathered even behind where the GM-quality adhesive has failed, was something we just did LAST NIGHT!!! I KNOW IT!!!!!
(You touched it last syndrome, bane of computer techs AND tow truck drivers nationwide) You eventually get jaded by this so that only the really really ODD ones start to blip your radar.
Like complaining about dents in the roof.
Even the guy in that junk kamikaze Cavalier that HAD dents on the roof didn't try and pin that one on us, but this guy did. Via email. A week after he left.
He called us to complain we owed him for denting his roof.
Yeah, uh, considering I towed it, and no towing equipment ever touches that part of the car, and the roof of my F-450 plus lightbar on top, is a good couple feet HIGHER than the roof of your towed Honda Fit, how exactly did I manage that?
I mean, if I HAD hit something while towing that dented your roof, my boss wouldn't be complaining about it to my face, he'd be complaining about it to the geyser of blood coming from my fresh new neck-hole where my head used to be because that would require me driving into something that would have taken the top 4 feet of this truck clean off even with the rearview mirrors...... and granted I don't remember last week very well, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen.
You lose, good day Sir.
Then there was the guy complaining about the smell.
Yes, he called to tell us his car now had an odd smell on the inside that it "didn't have before"
We told him that since we didn't get into the car, there's no way that it could be our fault.
He was insistent, "You had it last"
Okay, fine, drive it in here and we'll take a whiff
You can't? You're currently on the road outside Poughkeepsie, New York?
Well how bad can it be? We can't smell you from there. *click*
JOBZ JOBZ JOBZ
I feel like a politician sometimes, given the frequency with which I end up talking about jobs with strangers in public.
I get told to find a "Real" job I get told that I'm making life hard for people with jobs, I get asked how I ever found this job, asked if I like my job, told I should quit my job etc etc etc, why it's enough for me to go up to campus and ask for an honorary degree in business.
You can add another check to the bingo card, just got told this week to "find a better job" by an angry guy.
He got even angrier when I asked if he was hiring.
Yes, I'm probably slowly talking my way into a gunshot, but you only live once.
And the whole reason he was angry? I towed him for having an expired permit, as in it expired in December, and he didn't see why still trying to use it in July was a problem, because "it's for the same lot!" and "nobody was using that spot"
Irony - he just showed why I HAVE a job by his lack of problem solving.
The Phantom Manager
Not sure exactly what this charming lady did to make her landlord mad enough to tow her off the property, permit, car and all. Probably because she gave him a check for the parking rent that was printed on paper made from a rubber tree, that usually does it.
This greatly confused said lady, as she just could NOT understand how we could charge her to get her car out of impound since "she (sic) had a permit!" Trying to impress upon her that she needs to sort out some obvious issue between her and the party that issued said permit did nothing to change this. She was adamant that since she had a permit, she couldn't be towed and we couldn't charge her to get the car back.
That part of the phone call took 10 minutes to resolve, yes, she just kept repeating herself for ten minutes straight that "she had a permit". whatever Manager said, it was simply ignored and retorted with "But I had a permit....". For ten glorious minutes. I think he was actually bored or just toying with her for curiosity's sake.
But even he had his fill and around the 11 minute mark told her that this has gone on long enough, pay up or we keep the car until it's old enough to make it's own decisions in life and we send it down the road on it's own without you.
She went apoplectic.
NO! I WANT MY CAR AND I'M GETTING IT FOR FREE!
No
YOUR THE MANAGER! DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!
I just did, $130 or we keep it
NO! I WANT YOU TO DO SOMETHING! YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING ELSE!
Nope
YOU CAN'T DO SOMETHING ELSE?!
Nope
REALLY? YOU CAN'T HELP ME OUT HERE
Nope
YOU CAN'T HELP ME?
Nope
YOU CAN'T, YOU REALLY CAN'T??????
Okay, let me put it this way, maybe I can, but I won't.
I WANT THE MANAGER!!!!
Speaking
I WANT YOUR MANAGER
Don't have one
YES YOU DO!
No, I don't, I am the Towing Manager, I am in charge of towng, there's no one else here I can give you to higher than me
NO!!! I WANT YOUR MANAGER AND I WANT HIM NOW!!!
You have him!
NO!!!!!!!! I WANT SOMEONE ELSE!!!!!!
So he transferred her to the bodyshop manager, who sent her right back.
I WANT A MANAGER!!!!
So he transferred her to the service department manager, who sent her right back.
You can see where this is going?
He eventually sent her to the Parts Department Manager, the Service Tech Manager and the Billing Department Manager, who to a man/woman/mutant, just sent her back to the Towing Manager when she started chimping at them over the phone about a problem with "towing" - go figure.
So, after thirty minutes, yes, 30, she had talked to every manager in the building, and surprise surprise, the Towing Manager really WAS the one in charge of towing, just like he said.
And that's when she learned her lesson, right? HA HA HA HAHAHAAAAAA No. That's' when she hung up and sicced her boyfriend on us. And the whole cycle gloriously repeated itself anew.
Circle of Life my friends.... circle of life.....
I WANT OUT! GET ME A LIFE MANAGER!!!!
But I Had to Commit Fraud, We Were out of Money!
Speaking of bad permits, let me introduce the fakest fake of the fake bunch encountered this month.
Ahem, instead of black printing on white plastic, this one was black felt-tip marker, drawing by hand with no straight edge assist, on a piece of white corrugated cardboard, that was only white on the one side, the backside was brown. And it's not like these were block letters either, this was a Wrong Side of the Tracks reality property, WSOTT permits have held over their graphic design from when they were first formed as a company in what looks like the late 60's, given the font on them that says "WSOTT" is a little too , well, swoopy and "Groovy" to be a modern invention. And trying to duplicate that, by hand, along with the fact the big letters are gradient-shaded, was a bit beyond your artistic ability. It looked like a five year old drew that.
Naturally, this one didn't pass the laugh test, but it did, thankfully, just barely pass the "piss your trousers from laughing too hard" test, that would've been unfortunate for all involved because as I'm stunned looking at the thing, I fail to notice my presence has alerted the bro responsible for the work, and he comes running out of the house.
I tell him to move the car, he doesn't have a permit for the lot. Then I get the whammy.
"Uh, yeah I do, right there"
"That's not a permit"
"But"
"No it isn't, it's a fake, you KNOW it's a fake, do not insult me"
"But.... but.."
"No "buts", you move this car now or I'm towing it"
"But..."
"But what?"
"Well.... I .... I had to make my own, the office wasn't open so I couldn't get a real one"
....
....
Oh, well, why didn't you tell me that? I mean, that changes everything! Because you twaddled around all week and didn't realize until the Friday night party had commenced that: "hey, the office that hands out permits closed a couple hours ago" And you just charitably decided that it was THEIR fault so you could just do whatever the fark you wanted!
Hey, that gives me an idea! Next time I wanna get money out of the bank, but it's closed because of one of those weird Holidays that only bankers and Federal Agents get to take (like Columbus Day or National Ex Jocks With Receding Hairline Appreciation Day) I can just draw my own $20 bills! Right?! I mean, if your'e right tHEn I muSt be toO!
*VZZZZZZTTT* (Spoiler: That is the sound of a human brain melting)
WA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
Brilliant!
ANyone want a loan? I'm good for it!
I'm good for ALL of them!
Wanna Benjamin? I can make ya one!
Want $500? DONE!
Want $58.35? I'll make you a bill for that too!!! See?! It's got Sprio Agnew's picture on it, that way you know it's good!!!!!
I can practically bail out Greece over here! All I need is a pen and a piece of paper and world hunger is SOLVED!!!! Zimbabwe thinks a hundred million dollar note is excessive? I'll show em!
LOOK OUT WORLD! HERE COMES CAPTAIN MONEYBAGS!!!! HE SHOOTS STREAMS OF LIQUID DINERO FROM HIS EYEBALLS!!! HE DROWNS HIS ENEMIES IN ACRES OF LOOSE CHANGE!!! GET ON HIS SIDE!!! YOU'LL NEVER LOSE AT MONOPOLY AGAIN!!! AND I DON'T JUST MEAN THE PARKER-BROTHERS KIND!!! YEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH!!!!
And then I woke up from THAT daydream. And back into the nightmare that is towing and dealing with people like this.
Send help and/or a bottle of cheap booze, please.
But I had to Illegally Park, I'm Illegally Subletting!
While on patrol I notice a car at one of Global Domination Reality's many tyranny substations.
No, that's not what's unusual, you see a LOT of cars at Global Domination Reality properties, but this one I knew didn't belong. Yellow cars stick out, and they stick out even more when they have Wyoming license plates, that's from all the way on the other end of the country where the horses outnumber the people (but don't let them know, they may get cocky and revolt). SO I knew I had a real loser here, I'd remember this one if they were a tenant, but I'll check anyway. Yep, no permit. Slap, slap, and go....
By the time that car was dumped at the impound and the paperwork filled out, the owner was already in the office - complaining with Towing Manager.
"Why did I get towed?"
"You don't have a permit for that lot"
"But I LIVE there"
"Then you need to get a permit, even if you live there, tenants must have permits in their cars. it's in the rules, the signs say so."
"But I can't GET one, I'm subletting!"
"Global Domination Reality doesn't allow subletting, so you aren't even a tenant, you should have known better"
"Well, I still don't think this was very fair, who do I complain to about this?"
"Nobody, the fee is the fee, pay it or you don't get your car"
Pros - Short, sweet, to the point and she paid.
Cons - Her whole argument seemed to be that the rules don't apply when you break them...
Scary - She's still at large out there in the world, and her vote counts just as much as yours in any and all elections.
Sleep tight!You've been a lovely audience, tip your waitstaff and enjoy the meal!!! Next show is at 9 sharp!
He is my Black Dragon (and yes, a good one) strong, protective, the guardian. I am his Silver Dragon, always by his side, shining for him, cherishing him.
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