Tweet
Flip the calendars, reboot those crashed servers, move up the doomsday clock, it's time for a whole new year with the same predictable outcomes for those who think they're above the rules set by our benevolent Parking Gods (tm)
Let's dive right in.
Oldest Excuse in the Book, Son
Oh, lookie-loo! A note! In lieu of an actual parking permit. What does it say? Hummm...
"Permit is in the mail"
Uh huh.
Well, how exactly did everyone else in the lot get their brand spankin' new permit up, except you, who are apparently still waiting for it to come in the post? Four weeks into January? What'd you use? 48th Class Mail? Where the postage is NEGATIVE, they give YOU a buck and then just tape your letter to the next random truck that drives by and hope it gets to your intended destination?
Uh huh, likely story.
And it doesn't help that I got you twice last semester for fake permits and I know this car very well....
Congratulations on your first tow-in for 2018, deadbeat.
I can think of a couple things that were NOT your New Year's Resolution right about now.
He'd Gladly Pay us Friday for a Hamburger Today!
-Look, I just got towed from 412 Wazoo Street, and I was just visiting my Son!
-Doesn't matter Sir, you need a permit for that lot. It's Wrong Side of the Tracks Reality's property and they require a permit.
-Not if you're just visiting!
-Yes, especially if you are visiting, they give out temp passes at the office for that lot, in fact, two cars down there right now have one, you were the only one who didn't have a temp or a regular permit.
-Well, yeah, but I couldn't get one the office was closed for the weekend.
-Then you can't park there and need to call ahead next time.
-But, I was just visiting, look.... if they HAD been open I'm sure they WOULD have given me one!
...
...
what the Hell kind of excuse was THAT? That's not even an excuse, that's a HYPOTHETICAL.
That's like saying "I didn't win the lotto, but If I HAD, I'd certainly be good for it, so, do I get that Ferrari or not?
I Dare you to try financial "logic" like that on the IRS.
Option Play
-I think you have my car?
-What kind and color?
-White Mercedes, 444 Dome Street
-Yep, we have the one, it'll be..
-No, I was only there visiting, this is totally ludicrous!
-You need a permit to park there, Sir, no exceptions.
-But I was just visiting my kids!
-Still need a permit.
-This is f*cking unbelieveable! How can you justify this?!
-Because the person who owns that property, Global Domination Reality, says you need one.
-And you don't see a problem with that!?
-Nope, I don't have a problem with private property, do you? How would you like it if you came home and there were cars in your driveway you didn't want there? Wouldn't you like to be able to have them towed?
-Yeah, but I'd have the OPTION of saying "no"!
-Well, GDR also had the option, and they said "yes"
Again, what kind of argument was THAT? You just pointed out exactly where you lost, all that was missing to make it more complete was an instant replay and some "funny" content from a retired illegal parker color man as he draws on the screen with that digital pen thingy.... "I seen stuff like this before, Cotton, and right HERE, is where it all went wrong for him. This is just like the Big Tow for me back in 98' I don't like that call as a former parker, but it's a good call! He's got no argument!"
Unclear on a Concept
-When was my car towed?
-Uh, lessee.... 3:34 AM
-Three in the morning? You towed it at three?
-Yes
-Well, I'm glad you guys had all the spare time in the world to do that!
Spare time, SPARE TIME? Buddy, towing is our JOB, you know, the exact POLAR OPPOSITE of "spare time"? By that logic, Europe was extremely lucky the allied armed forces had all that spare time to storm Omaha Beach and shoot up the place!
No, I didn't say that but I really should have.
Consider That You are NOT the Professionals
Don't ever THINK you are when you are not, you will only embarrass yourself and delay the inevitable.
*RING*
-Hey, I uh, need a tow at 300 Scooby Street, my car broke down.
-Okay, we can be there in 14 minutes or so, it'll be $50 for a tow as long as we aren't exceeding 10 miles plus $20 if we need to use our dollies.
-Okay.
*RING*
-Hey Dude, forget that tow, my buddy's coming over, says he can fix the car for me
-*frowning through clenched teeth*, okay, thanks for letting us know. (while the driver is halfway there, grumble grumble)
*RING*
-County 911, we have a disable at 300 Scooby for a vehicle blocking traffic and missing a wheel, what is your ETA?
- *smiling wryly* 10 minutes
Yeah, you hit a curb so hard you KNOCKED OFF A WHEEL (and the upper ball joint/control arm for good measure!) and you thought your "buddy" could FIX that in the middle of the road, in the dark, in the snow? And 911/disables with damage are, by ordinance, charged wreck fees, $200.
Mo money! Mo money! Mo money!
If only you hadn't delayed us by cancelling...... we may have had you out of there BEFORE the patrolling officer found you.
You mortals doth amuse me so sometimes!
Sob Story? More Like SOB
So, earlier this week Towing Manager got knocked out by illness. There's a particularly nasty strain of the flu going around right now, it's probably the one that killed all the Martians at the end of War of the Worlds, and he was it's latest victim.
So, we had to pluck Beantown, an outsider from the service department who at least has managerial and customer-facing experience and stick him behind the towing department desk to release the cars and deal with complaints for the day. (Or is that "release the cahrs and deal with wicked stupid people all day"? there's a reason he has that nickname
)
Well, here comes the first test. A person we knew we'd be getting and had already warned Beantown about. We picked up a Pontiac last night, at 2am, after a tip-off from the property owner that said person was sneaking into his lot without a permit after dark. See, the guy had approached said property owner about buying a semester's worth of parking, but balked at the $300 price tag for that, and just decided "Hell with that, this guy can't possibly watch the lot ALL THE TIME, sneaky ol' me will just park there anyway"
Well he was half-right, the property owner can't watch that lot all the time, but the guy he hired to do it for him and call us if Mr Pontiac was spotted? that guy had free time to spare, so he COULD.
And so, Mr Don't Wanna had his Tin Indian towed, twice.
Property owner still suspects, however, that Don't-Wanna is using the lot, since he hasn't come in for parking, and he's spotted the Poncho out in the street during daylight hours, since Borough no-parking regs don't take effect on that stretch until 2am.... and he's betting that Don't Wanna is leaving the car there until 2, moving into the lot, and then moving back out again in the morning.
And he was totally right!
So, with that backstory out of the way, we were primed for Don't-Wanna to come in and try to weasel out of the most recent tow because, well, he's a Don't-Wanna.
Sure enough, here he comes.
Me, I just hung out in the corner and pretended to be engrossed in reading some blank sheets of paper, ready to jump in only if Beantown needed some help.
I shouldn't have worried.
"Yeah, I, uh, got towed, but, I like live there.... so........"
"You need a permit ta pahk in that lot, and you know that, because we've already towed you two times for this"
"Well, yeah, but the guy wants like $300 for that, I don't have that kind of money!"
"You already spent moah than that on those two tows, if you'd just bought pahrking in the first place, you'd be ahead"
"But, I... you know, I have some real bad health problems? ANd like, over ten thousand in bills I have to pay, and, well...... I was kinda hoping you'd have some compassion for a guy whose suffering serious illness"
"You mean like colon canca'? Fah two years? And just had a round of chemo completed last week? That kind of ill? Because I got lahts of experience there. Now, if you aren't going to pay for your cah, you can get the *BLEEP* out!"
Darn, we got a real prospect here! I don't think he's got the talent quite yet to be smackin' balls ovah' the green mahnster, but he's definitely got a major-league swing! Well done to you, Sir! You start with the AA Pawtucket Crawdads Monday!
Oh, and our buddy with the Arrowmobile bought parking later that day
Peak Chutzpah
Tis' one thing to get your car towed for illegal parking
Tis another to call us up and get indigent about that tow, arguing that you were "only there for like 3 minutes" when the transit time between our impound, the parking lot, and back to impound is about three times as long as that. In other words, to simply HAVE the car in the lot right now requires 9 minutes of work/driving. Oh, and there's that little matter that you even had the benefit of the Borough's 15 minute amnesty between the guy patrolling the lot calling us and us actually leaving to get the car in the first place.
Tis' yet another to complain about the costs of the tow, since those are, likewise, set by the Borough, not by our maniacal whims.
And yes, tis' ANOTHER thing to demand, not suggest, demand that we go back over there and pick them up and ferry them back here for their car because "They [sic] have no way to get there" and "Can't afford a taxi/Uber" and asking them to walk a MILE? ON FOOT? That's as bad as asking them to walk 500 miles, then walk 500 more, just to be the chump who walked 1,000 miles to fall down at our door! (Everyone got that in their head now? GOOD!)
But the piece d' resistance? The crem de la crem? The Blue Plate Special?
They did all this complaining after using a tampered permit to try and sneak back into the lot. Tampered how? By ripping the expiration date off. Yeah, that's about as innocent as grinding the serial numbers off the receiver of a firearm. You can't possibly do it by accident, and you couldn't possibly have pure motives for doing it.
FIG 1 - The Shame - https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...ac&oe=5AE1A1EB
Yeah, they still left enough "meat" on the sticker that you can clearly tell the first two digits were "12", that's a fail, smokey. And you are mad at US about that? Is that what that all was?
Was that whole thing displacement? You got mad at us for your own considerable anger at yourself for executing such a ham-fisted plan? And you just could not BELIEVE it didn't work? How could it not!? IT WAS BRILLIANT!!! YOU STOOPID! ME GENIUS!!!
I hope so, otherwise there may be a smugness singularity forming in your head that could, in theory, collapse upon itself and form a gaping black hole of pure pretentiousness. It would probably kill you, which wouldn't be a great loss, but there will probably be a lot of innocent people in that blast/vacuum radius that may get hurt when you finally go off....
Gamed the System, the System Gamed Back
We didn't know this was happening until we put the tortured little pieces together in the cool 20/20 clarity of hindsight, but here's what was going on.
Down at Beavis Towers, you rend an apartment, they call the cops on you for vandalism (lol typo! We'll roll with it) You RENT an apartment from them, you get an assigned space and a permit with that space number on it. You park in that space, and ONLY in that space. You gave company coming over? The use one of the limited and marked "VISITOR" spaces that have no permits. Once these fill up, you are SOL. To keep people from storing dead cars in these spaces, you are limited to 24 hours of parking per week on the lot. The maintenance man sees the same car in the VIS spots two days in a row? He calls you in.
He called us because he found a blue minivan in the visitors lot that's been there for a couple days.
Spitzilla is sent out to fetch it, but upon arrival, notes the van has a permit for Beavis Towers, space 39. This means the owner probably got displaced from that spot by an illegal parker, so Spitz decides not to tow him just yet, and wanders on down to space 39 where, sure enough, there's a Volvo with no permit in the spot. And hooks up.
This sets off the Volvo owner's mutant power to detect his ride being towed and he immediately bolts out of the building and demands that Spitz put his Volvo down because "he has a permit"
Spitz points out that if it does have a permit, he certainly can't see it, since there is currently not one in the Volvo.
Doesn't matter, argues the guy, he's a resident so he gets to park in space 39!
Spitz further points out that residency is irrelevant, you need a permit for 39 to use 39, and such is clearly spelled out in your lease. So where is it?
Guy claims that he's never heard of such a thing/rule/animal and the argument kinda stalemated there for the next 15 minutes or so, I'll spare you the verbal ping pong match, it wasn't very notable. (you need a permit, nuh-uh, uh huh, nuh-uh, uh huh)
Suffice it to say, Spitz eventually got it through this guy's melon that since his car had no permit, he was going to be paying a drop or towed in full, depending on the amount of forthcoming compliance.
Guy walks over to that aforementioned minivan in the visitors space, unlocks it, pulls the permit out of it and comes back over to Spitz
"THERE'S my permit, now put it down!"
Spitz blinks in disbelief and explains that that is all well and good, but if the permit is not in the vehicle he is towing BEFORE the tow, it doesn't count.
Nope, our man is insistent HE is in the right, he has a permit RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW so it DOES count.
Spitz reiterates, if it is not in the car, and it wasn't, then it's NO GOOD. The only car that permit gave permission to park was the van, which, BTW was in the wrong spot, right now, in fact, BOTH of your cars can be towed, the van for wrong space, the Volvo for no permit. (also in that pesky lease you signed, you stay OUT of visitor spaces, those are for visitors). Oh what a tangled web of Watergate-level skullduggery we've discovered! Someone who's master plan was... scamming a free parking space in violation of lease rules.
This is where it got really weird.
Not exactly a Twilight Zone Everyone-in-the-room-but-you-is-really-a-lizard-and-suddenly-rips-off-their-phony-skin moment.... but it's close.
Guy opens the door to the Volvo, and tosses the permit insdie, shuts the door, turns to Spitz and says "Prove that wasn't in there!"
"huh?"
"There's a permit in there NOW! So prove it WASN'T when you got here! You can't! SO you have to put me down!"
Sptiz does the worst thing in this situation, the WORST possible thing you can do, he busts out laughing.
"SEriously, Sir? I know it wasn't there because I JUST SAW YOU PUT IT IN THERE after taking it out of ANOTHER car."
"Yeah, but you can't PROVE it!"
Unable to believe where this is going, Spitz just shakes his head and laughs some more "I just saw you do it, man"
"I'm serious! Says the guy "You can't prove it so you can't charge me anything! Put it down or I'll..... CALL THE COPS!"
"Go ahead" says Spitz "and while they're on the way, I'll have another truck come down and tow that van, because it's illegal too, it can't be in visitors, and I don't think you'll be able to stand in front of both of them"
It was at this point that Elvis left the building and the guy agreed to pay, but let it be known that this entire thing was UNFAIR and ILLEGAL and he'd be CALLING OUR MANAGER ON MONDAY!!!!!
TLDR - Man tries to hustle his apartment regulations, buys only one permit for two vehicles and tries to hide this hustle by constantly swapping the singular permit between two different vehicles, gets caught doing it, lies like a Senator, outright denies reality, threatens to call cops when we don't buy lie, threatens to call our manager for our crime of not accepting his reality, ends up paying in the end, and life as it was, struggles on.
Or as we in the business call it "Tuesday"
I've 'Hoid of Illegal Parking, But That Was Ridiculous!
I've said it before, I shall now say it again, because the public keeps doing it.....
Friendly Neighborhood Towing will not, I repeat, NOT, be complacent in any crimes you commit, so don't call us for a tow for a "break down" at "400 Easy St" when the root cause is trying to clumsily hide a DUI. How do we know? Because neither of those "facts" proved true on our arrival.
Firstly, you weren't at 400 Easy. You were at about, oh, I dunno....looks like 550 Easy. Or, rather, what would HYPOTHETICALLY be 550 Easy if the street went that far. It doesn't. It ends in the 400 block, where the pavement stops and Easy Street Public Park begins. You apparently didn't notice this and kept going an extra hundred yards into said park.... and that's when you had your "break down", which was less "break down" and more "picked fight with children's jungle gym and lost" Fortunately this was 2am in winter, so no kids were imperiled when you decided to play on thier stuff with an Audi A4
Now, this is a free country, so if you feel like fleeing the scene of an accident where damage has occurred to persons or property, be our guest, but do it now, because we just called the cops and the station is only 3 blocks away, my guess is you have about 90 seconds of freedom left, and maybe only a minute more if you choose to bolt. Like I said, 2am, in winter? There isn't exactly a crowd to blend in with out there right now....
To their absolutely microscopic credit, they at least stayed put and took their medicine.
I know being drunk can have a negative effect on your cognitive abilities, but man, why do so many people think we won't notice and furthermore won't care about something as trivial as them menacing the public?
There's enough old senile guys in large cars out there who are LEGALLY making my drive to work a hazard every morning, and I'm not looking to play the commute game on "Expert" difficulty if I can help it! It's practically war out there! And if I see a chance to get an enemy driver off the road? In cuffs? YOU BET I'M TAKING IT!
You Think This Was Something? Stay Tuned for the Sequel!
Him - Dude, DUDE, DUDE! C'MON DUDE, SERIOUSLY? YOU ARE SERIOUSLY GOING TO DO THIS? DUDE! DUDE!!! I WAS LIKE, WHATEVER DUDE! I WAS ONLY HERE LIKE A MINUTE, ONE MINUTE DUDE!!!
Me - Well, you don't have a permit to be here, this is a private lot.
Him - C'MON DUDE! REALLY?! REALLY!??!
Me - Yes, the same rules apply to you as everyone else.
Him - DUDE!!!! REALLY?? REALLY DUDE??????!!!!! YOU... YOU, DUDE! SERIOUSLY!???? I... I. F*CK YOU I'M DONE TALKING TO YOU!!!!!
And that concludes this absolutely RIVETING episode of Pauly Shore Gets Towed, roll the credits please!
Godot Gets a Tow
It has NOT been Spitzilla's month, seems like he's gotten every rotten, stinking maladjusted, litigious, wants-to-fight person on the block as of late.
Makes you wonder what the poor guy did wrong in a past life.
He got it again the other night when he went over to Alphabet Plaza for a car without a permit. Well, more like a truck without a permit, and well, it had a permit, an expired one, that ran out in September of 2017 and had long had all the info baked off it by the sunlight. The only way we knew it was 2017 was because it was still a little purple, last year's color, as this year is a trendy pastel powder blue that's sure to make a statement darling!
And, once again, as soon as he was hooked, people materialized from the aether and wanted to argue. A pair of very loud and very (as you'll see) obnoxious women, as it turned out. And boy, did THEY have some comments and concerns about THIS one!
First that he couldn't tow the car because the owner 'was coming right down' for it.
Secondly, that they had a permit. (Expired by almost 5 months, but what's a half a year in the grand scheme?)
Thirdly, the owner was "coming right down" for it.
And, Fourthly, we were a bunch of jerks.
Well, whatever, Spitz decided to stop loading at that point and start on the paperwork since the owner was "coming right down" and Alphabet Plaza is only a four-story building, if he does it right, he should have all the pertinent info on the tow slip just as the unlucky third lady of the group gets down 4 flights of stairs.
Except... he's now done with the papers, and, there doesn't seem to be this promised vehicle owner anywhere around.
Spitz asks where she is, the other two ladies assure him, "She's coming right down"
"Well, got an ETA on that?" asks Spitz, because he kinda can't be here all night.
They whip out a phone, yammer a bit and assure him "She's coming!"
Yes, but how long?
"Twenty minutes"
*record needle scratch*
Huh? How can it take that long to get down some simple stairs, I know the stereotype is that women can take FOREVER to get ready before going out, but this is nuts! Even if she is in the bathroom.... with the rest of the herd.....
Well, turns out, Miss "Coming Right Down" is not in the building at all, she's not even on the property, or in the neighborhood, she's downtown at a bar. It seems that instead of paying our Borough's DRACONIAN fees for public parking, these two ladies told their friend to just park at their apartment for the night. Sure, NOTHING will happen!
Sptiz tells them that he's as patient as the next person, but, if he doesn't see Miss Coming Right Over in the next five minutes, he's leaving.
The dyspeptic duo scowl at him, their demeanor gets several levels bitchier, and they screech that they can't believe he won't wait for someone who is "Coming RIGHT over!"
Spitz reiterates, five minutes or he's leaving, since he's already hooked.
The two women then decide to SIT ON THE REAR BUMPER of the truck and declare they won't move.
Spitz tells them to get off there before they get hurt, as they're dangerously close to some seriously heavy moving hydraulics, in the dark.
They hiss at him to "Stop assaulting us!"
Woah, wha? Okay, now we've entered "no longer playing" territory. Spitz pulls out his phone.
"Okay, I'm calling the cops, you just accused me of comitting a crime and I won't stand for that."
The ladies chuckle a bit "Yeah, like you're calling the cops!"
"I am" says Spitz "You just claimed an assault happened, by me, no less, so when the officer gets here, you can tell him exactly what happened, because I'm NOT going to have someone claim I beat up a woman, not even in jest"
Another chuckle "You aren't calling the cops"
"I'm with communications right now" he says
Now, a little angry, a third callout - "you are NOT calling the cops!"
"Communications? Hi, Spitzilla, Friendly Neighborhood. Oh nothing much, who's the supervisor on tonight Sergeant Muck? or Corporal Moe? Moe? She may have to come down to Alphabet Plaza, I've got two ladies here accusing me of beating them up. What do they look like? Well...."
Oh, look at that, Spitz can't give a description of the two, because they've evaporated. They have high-tailed it so fast, I think they actually left behind two dust clouds in their exact same shape sitting on the back bumper of that truck, whose owner has, surprise, no yet shown up despite "Coming Right Down".
"Eh, nevermind, they left, but I'll let you know if we need Moe" says Spitz as he hops in the truck and completes the tow.
Miss "Coming Right Down" did in fact, come "right down" as in at 3pm the following day, to pick up the truck.
Your Mind Powers Will Not Work on us, Boy!
Let this be a warning, young Padawan. When you get an answer from us you do not like, usually in connection to a recent unrequested relocation of your personal vehicle, you cannot make it un-happen or not happen again in the future with the ol Jedi Mind Trick.
And yet you will still try? Won't you? Of course you will... at least this sourpuss will.
-Why da FUQ did you tow my car?!
-No swearing, please, Sir, now, the reason we have it is it was towed in for having an expired temporary permit. It was only good through Friday, got towed Sunday night going into Monday morning.
-Only two days it's out and you just TOWED IT?!
-Yes
-Well, you're not towing my car again.
-If we find it illegally parked, yes we will
-You're NOT towing my car again!
-Yes, if we find it illegally parked, we will
-You are NOT TOWING my car again!
-We will if we have to
-Listen fa**ot, I don't like having my car touched, and you touched it without my permission! You aren't doing that again, you do and there will be TROUBLE!
-Sir, you can stop threatening me right now, or you can step outside and someone else can come pick this car up.
-I'm not going anywhere, and you are NOT GOING TO TOW ME AGAIN!
Sir, I'm done arguing, you will be towed at every instance of illegal parking, and if you continue to be belligerent, the police will be called.
So he paid and left, and up to bat stepped the next hot prospect out of the minors to try HER luck. Surprisingly, she didn't question the tow (the cops called her in for blocking an alleyway) and she didn't accuse us of a malicious touching of her car and demand we pay for therapy session where they try to help it heal from such a shattering trauma, because she, like a normal person, understands her car is not a living, breathing thing. Unfortunately, the normalcy ended there because now it was payment time.
"I'm using my Grandma's credit card, let me call her here for the number."
"We cannot take a credit card over the phone, it has to be your card, in your name, and in front of us right now."
"Uh, but I don't want to use mine, I want to use her's."
"Like I just said, we cannot take a credit card over the phone, sight unseen."
"Okay, well, here, she's on the line now to give it to you."
"No, it has to be physically present, right here, right now, and it has to be your card in your name."
"You won't take it? SHe's right here, talk to her!"
"Miss... I'm not going to talk to her. There's nothing I can say to her I have not already said to you. We cannot use her card if she isn't here. You need a card, in your name, in your hand, right now, if you want to pay by credit card. That's the only way we can do it. No exceptions."
She started to say something again: "Well, what if I take a picture and..." but this is where Beantown, who had been dealing with someone else jumped into the fray.
"Look, he has explained it to you three times, very clearly, and I've been heah for all three of em! You can't use her cahd! You have to use your own! You do it our way-ah or you don't get the cah!"
She looked dejected, but, stopped sniveling and paid, with her own credit card, like she should have, 10 minutes ago.
Geeze Beantown, forget what I said about Pawtucket! I'm moving you clear up to AAA ball! All we need now is for one of the guys on the Sawx roster to get injured, and you're headed to The Show. You'll be knockin' em out like Teddy Ballgame!
Now, about our two rejects of the hominid assembly line. Quick question. If I handed you a hammer, and you smashed it on the back of your hand as hard as you possibly could, and it hurt like the dickens because you just fractured your knuckle, why on Earth would you keep smashing? While yelling YOU WILL NOT BREAK!!!! over and over again? Because that's essentially what you people did. Kept trying the same thing over and over and over again despite being told it would not work and lo and behold, it did not work.
Amazing really, two millennia of humanity carefully selecting for the best genes, and you get people doing things that an infinite amount of monkeys given an infinite amount of time would never ever DREAM of attempting for far longer than any sane primate would.... it's like the human genome has an upper counter limit like Pac Man, and reaching level 256 causes it to irreparably crash because nobody thought you'd ever go that high.
One of these days, I'm going to wake up and find that the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government have been taken over by chimps, gorillas and orangutans, respectively. Fine by me actually, something might actually get DONE around here, you guys hiring by chance? President Silverback said the economy was improving and banana production is up 4% in last night's Ape of the Union address......
How Do I Math my Reads?
When you get towed in by Friendly Neighborhood Towing, the driver fills out a tow slip. This will eventually become your receipt when you pay. Since the same mass-printed sheet has to serve for not only cars towed for illegal parking but also regular service calls and 911 calls, there's a line-item list on the bottom half of the page that includes things like the $60 clean-up fee for wrecks, the $40 protection fee for cars with windows left down and, since we have no idea how long it will take for you notice your car has disappeared, there's a line-item for "storage, _____ days at $_________"
None of these were ticked off on your paperwork, and the corresponding lines/boxes adjacent to them? They were not filled in. With anything.
The only thing that appeared on your tow slip was "$170" in the "Base Tow Fee" box and "$20" for "Dollies" Everything else on that page, was blank, all the way down to the bottom line where it said "Stone Cold Said So" er, no, it said "Total $190"
This was all wayy wayy wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too confusing for our heroine in this story. She looked over this, and wanted to know why we "charged her [sic] for storage"
"We didn't"
"But it's on the bill"
"Yes, a place for it to be added is there, but the lines next to it are blank, you weren't charged"
"oh.... but, why did I get charged for protection?"
*sigh* "You didn't"
"But it says right here!"
"That's if you leave a window down and we have to cover it up, or your sunroof open, you didn't, so we didn't, so we didn't charge for it. The box next to it is empty. THe only charges you have are $170 for the tow and $20 for dollies"
"Oh, so why did you double-charge me?"
*SIGH* "Double charge?"
"Yes! There are TWO things on here!"
"I just said, one is the $170 for your tow, the other is $20 because we had to use dollies, 170 and 20 together make 190. That's your total, that's what you paid. "
"But... what's ..."
"You know what? I don't care! I'm done explaining this, you owed $190, you paid $190, now just get OUT of here!"
And she did.
Well, that was interesting. You know, Yogi Berra may have summed up this very conundrum best when he famously said "90% of baseball is mental, the other half is physical"
I'm with you -405% there, Chief.
I Do Not Think Those Words Mean What you Think They Mean
Guy gets towed out of Bad Foundation Arms for having no permit for that apartment's lot. When he comes in to get the car, he is absolutely livid that we towed him out of visitor's parking.
We inform him that there is no visitor parking at Bad Foundation Arms, never has been, never will be, its by permit only.
Nope, our hero is adamant that he parked RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE SIGN THAT SAID VISITORS! And as soon as he gets his car back, he'll go down there and take a picture of it an that will PROVE we're a bunch of thievin' varmints!!!!
Well, okay, you do that wild man, because there is no such sign down there.
So, he trots off, and about five minutes later is back with his cellphone held high, he had the proof! Absolute video proof of the most shocking miscarriage of justice seen this young Century! With the posture of a conquering Roman general presenting the Emperor with the captured King of the Gauls, he thrusts the phone in Towing Manager's face and says "HERE!"
To which Towing Manager strokes his chin and says "Sir, that sign says "Compact Car Only" "
The guy looked like he just got punched in the gut by one of those six foot high radioactive mutant monstrosities that shamble around in post-apocalyptic first-person-shooters and kill your character for fun and profit.
He pulls the phone back, looks at it in disbelief.... and then quietly walks out. That was anticlimactic, no? I don't believe anything has sunk that far and that fast since the Royal Navy caught up with the Bismarck in 1941.....
Really? My man, you didn't even PROOF read that? Even as you were TAKING IT'S PICTURE, you didn't notice what the sign actually said? It was only THREE WORDS!!!! THREE! You could stick your hand in the industrial equipment of your choice and probably STILL have enough meat left on your stumps to count that high! Dear Lord.....
Humanity is doomed my friends, I used to hold out some foolish, prideful hope, but now I'm calling it. 2018 was the year of no return. Oh sure, it brought us some great things, didn't it? Like internal combustion, hula hoops, peanut butter, prop comedians, the smallpox vaccine, highly organized crime, the ability to purchase goods on credit, being at the top of the food chain, gummy candy, the ability to instantly access over 10,000 unique pictures of kitty cats that look like Hitler, from your phone..... man, it was a heck of a ride, too bad it had to end so ingloriously.
Anyone needs me, I'll be over here tearing up the last shreds of my optimism, purely to deny the rest of ya'll the pleasure!
Aaaaaaaaand sleep......
Let's dive right in.
Oldest Excuse in the Book, Son
Oh, lookie-loo! A note! In lieu of an actual parking permit. What does it say? Hummm...
"Permit is in the mail"
Uh huh.
Well, how exactly did everyone else in the lot get their brand spankin' new permit up, except you, who are apparently still waiting for it to come in the post? Four weeks into January? What'd you use? 48th Class Mail? Where the postage is NEGATIVE, they give YOU a buck and then just tape your letter to the next random truck that drives by and hope it gets to your intended destination?
Uh huh, likely story.
And it doesn't help that I got you twice last semester for fake permits and I know this car very well....
Congratulations on your first tow-in for 2018, deadbeat. I can think of a couple things that were NOT your New Year's Resolution right about now.
He'd Gladly Pay us Friday for a Hamburger Today!
-Look, I just got towed from 412 Wazoo Street, and I was just visiting my Son!
-Doesn't matter Sir, you need a permit for that lot. It's Wrong Side of the Tracks Reality's property and they require a permit.
-Not if you're just visiting!
-Yes, especially if you are visiting, they give out temp passes at the office for that lot, in fact, two cars down there right now have one, you were the only one who didn't have a temp or a regular permit.
-Well, yeah, but I couldn't get one the office was closed for the weekend.
-Then you can't park there and need to call ahead next time.
-But, I was just visiting, look.... if they HAD been open I'm sure they WOULD have given me one!
...
...
what the Hell kind of excuse was THAT? That's not even an excuse, that's a HYPOTHETICAL. That's like saying "I didn't win the lotto, but If I HAD, I'd certainly be good for it, so, do I get that Ferrari or not?
I Dare you to try financial "logic" like that on the IRS.
Option Play
-I think you have my car?
-What kind and color?
-White Mercedes, 444 Dome Street
-Yep, we have the one, it'll be..
-No, I was only there visiting, this is totally ludicrous!
-You need a permit to park there, Sir, no exceptions.
-But I was just visiting my kids!
-Still need a permit.
-This is f*cking unbelieveable! How can you justify this?!
-Because the person who owns that property, Global Domination Reality, says you need one.
-And you don't see a problem with that!?
-Nope, I don't have a problem with private property, do you? How would you like it if you came home and there were cars in your driveway you didn't want there? Wouldn't you like to be able to have them towed?
-Yeah, but I'd have the OPTION of saying "no"!
-Well, GDR also had the option, and they said "yes"
Again, what kind of argument was THAT? You just pointed out exactly where you lost, all that was missing to make it more complete was an instant replay and some "funny" content from a retired illegal parker color man as he draws on the screen with that digital pen thingy.... "I seen stuff like this before, Cotton, and right HERE, is where it all went wrong for him. This is just like the Big Tow for me back in 98' I don't like that call as a former parker, but it's a good call! He's got no argument!"
Unclear on a Concept
-When was my car towed?
-Uh, lessee.... 3:34 AM
-Three in the morning? You towed it at three?
-Yes
-Well, I'm glad you guys had all the spare time in the world to do that!
Spare time, SPARE TIME? Buddy, towing is our JOB, you know, the exact POLAR OPPOSITE of "spare time"? By that logic, Europe was extremely lucky the allied armed forces had all that spare time to storm Omaha Beach and shoot up the place!
No, I didn't say that but I really should have.
Consider That You are NOT the Professionals
Don't ever THINK you are when you are not, you will only embarrass yourself and delay the inevitable.
*RING*
-Hey, I uh, need a tow at 300 Scooby Street, my car broke down.
-Okay, we can be there in 14 minutes or so, it'll be $50 for a tow as long as we aren't exceeding 10 miles plus $20 if we need to use our dollies.
-Okay.
*RING*
-Hey Dude, forget that tow, my buddy's coming over, says he can fix the car for me
-*frowning through clenched teeth*, okay, thanks for letting us know. (while the driver is halfway there, grumble grumble)
*RING*
-County 911, we have a disable at 300 Scooby for a vehicle blocking traffic and missing a wheel, what is your ETA?
- *smiling wryly* 10 minutes
Yeah, you hit a curb so hard you KNOCKED OFF A WHEEL (and the upper ball joint/control arm for good measure!) and you thought your "buddy" could FIX that in the middle of the road, in the dark, in the snow? And 911/disables with damage are, by ordinance, charged wreck fees, $200.
Mo money! Mo money! Mo money!
If only you hadn't delayed us by cancelling...... we may have had you out of there BEFORE the patrolling officer found you.
You mortals doth amuse me so sometimes!
Sob Story? More Like SOB
So, earlier this week Towing Manager got knocked out by illness. There's a particularly nasty strain of the flu going around right now, it's probably the one that killed all the Martians at the end of War of the Worlds, and he was it's latest victim.
So, we had to pluck Beantown, an outsider from the service department who at least has managerial and customer-facing experience and stick him behind the towing department desk to release the cars and deal with complaints for the day. (Or is that "release the cahrs and deal with wicked stupid people all day"? there's a reason he has that nickname
)Well, here comes the first test. A person we knew we'd be getting and had already warned Beantown about. We picked up a Pontiac last night, at 2am, after a tip-off from the property owner that said person was sneaking into his lot without a permit after dark. See, the guy had approached said property owner about buying a semester's worth of parking, but balked at the $300 price tag for that, and just decided "Hell with that, this guy can't possibly watch the lot ALL THE TIME, sneaky ol' me will just park there anyway"
Well he was half-right, the property owner can't watch that lot all the time, but the guy he hired to do it for him and call us if Mr Pontiac was spotted? that guy had free time to spare, so he COULD.
And so, Mr Don't Wanna had his Tin Indian towed, twice.
Property owner still suspects, however, that Don't-Wanna is using the lot, since he hasn't come in for parking, and he's spotted the Poncho out in the street during daylight hours, since Borough no-parking regs don't take effect on that stretch until 2am.... and he's betting that Don't Wanna is leaving the car there until 2, moving into the lot, and then moving back out again in the morning.
And he was totally right!
So, with that backstory out of the way, we were primed for Don't-Wanna to come in and try to weasel out of the most recent tow because, well, he's a Don't-Wanna.
Sure enough, here he comes.
Me, I just hung out in the corner and pretended to be engrossed in reading some blank sheets of paper, ready to jump in only if Beantown needed some help.
I shouldn't have worried.
"Yeah, I, uh, got towed, but, I like live there.... so........"
"You need a permit ta pahk in that lot, and you know that, because we've already towed you two times for this"
"Well, yeah, but the guy wants like $300 for that, I don't have that kind of money!"
"You already spent moah than that on those two tows, if you'd just bought pahrking in the first place, you'd be ahead"
"But, I... you know, I have some real bad health problems? ANd like, over ten thousand in bills I have to pay, and, well...... I was kinda hoping you'd have some compassion for a guy whose suffering serious illness"
"You mean like colon canca'? Fah two years? And just had a round of chemo completed last week? That kind of ill? Because I got lahts of experience there. Now, if you aren't going to pay for your cah, you can get the *BLEEP* out!"
Darn, we got a real prospect here! I don't think he's got the talent quite yet to be smackin' balls ovah' the green mahnster, but he's definitely got a major-league swing! Well done to you, Sir! You start with the AA Pawtucket Crawdads Monday!
Oh, and our buddy with the Arrowmobile bought parking later that day
Peak Chutzpah
Tis' one thing to get your car towed for illegal parking
Tis another to call us up and get indigent about that tow, arguing that you were "only there for like 3 minutes" when the transit time between our impound, the parking lot, and back to impound is about three times as long as that. In other words, to simply HAVE the car in the lot right now requires 9 minutes of work/driving. Oh, and there's that little matter that you even had the benefit of the Borough's 15 minute amnesty between the guy patrolling the lot calling us and us actually leaving to get the car in the first place.
Tis' yet another to complain about the costs of the tow, since those are, likewise, set by the Borough, not by our maniacal whims.
And yes, tis' ANOTHER thing to demand, not suggest, demand that we go back over there and pick them up and ferry them back here for their car because "They [sic] have no way to get there" and "Can't afford a taxi/Uber" and asking them to walk a MILE? ON FOOT? That's as bad as asking them to walk 500 miles, then walk 500 more, just to be the chump who walked 1,000 miles to fall down at our door! (Everyone got that in their head now? GOOD!
)But the piece d' resistance? The crem de la crem? The Blue Plate Special?
They did all this complaining after using a tampered permit to try and sneak back into the lot. Tampered how? By ripping the expiration date off. Yeah, that's about as innocent as grinding the serial numbers off the receiver of a firearm. You can't possibly do it by accident, and you couldn't possibly have pure motives for doing it.
FIG 1 - The Shame - https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...ac&oe=5AE1A1EB
Yeah, they still left enough "meat" on the sticker that you can clearly tell the first two digits were "12", that's a fail, smokey. And you are mad at US about that? Is that what that all was?
Was that whole thing displacement? You got mad at us for your own considerable anger at yourself for executing such a ham-fisted plan? And you just could not BELIEVE it didn't work? How could it not!? IT WAS BRILLIANT!!! YOU STOOPID! ME GENIUS!!!
I hope so, otherwise there may be a smugness singularity forming in your head that could, in theory, collapse upon itself and form a gaping black hole of pure pretentiousness. It would probably kill you, which wouldn't be a great loss, but there will probably be a lot of innocent people in that blast/vacuum radius that may get hurt when you finally go off....
Gamed the System, the System Gamed Back
We didn't know this was happening until we put the tortured little pieces together in the cool 20/20 clarity of hindsight, but here's what was going on.
Down at Beavis Towers, you rend an apartment, they call the cops on you for vandalism (lol typo! We'll roll with it) You RENT an apartment from them, you get an assigned space and a permit with that space number on it. You park in that space, and ONLY in that space. You gave company coming over? The use one of the limited and marked "VISITOR" spaces that have no permits. Once these fill up, you are SOL. To keep people from storing dead cars in these spaces, you are limited to 24 hours of parking per week on the lot. The maintenance man sees the same car in the VIS spots two days in a row? He calls you in.
He called us because he found a blue minivan in the visitors lot that's been there for a couple days.
Spitzilla is sent out to fetch it, but upon arrival, notes the van has a permit for Beavis Towers, space 39. This means the owner probably got displaced from that spot by an illegal parker, so Spitz decides not to tow him just yet, and wanders on down to space 39 where, sure enough, there's a Volvo with no permit in the spot. And hooks up.
This sets off the Volvo owner's mutant power to detect his ride being towed and he immediately bolts out of the building and demands that Spitz put his Volvo down because "he has a permit"
Spitz points out that if it does have a permit, he certainly can't see it, since there is currently not one in the Volvo.
Doesn't matter, argues the guy, he's a resident so he gets to park in space 39!
Spitz further points out that residency is irrelevant, you need a permit for 39 to use 39, and such is clearly spelled out in your lease. So where is it?
Guy claims that he's never heard of such a thing/rule/animal and the argument kinda stalemated there for the next 15 minutes or so, I'll spare you the verbal ping pong match, it wasn't very notable. (you need a permit, nuh-uh, uh huh, nuh-uh, uh huh)
Suffice it to say, Spitz eventually got it through this guy's melon that since his car had no permit, he was going to be paying a drop or towed in full, depending on the amount of forthcoming compliance.
Guy walks over to that aforementioned minivan in the visitors space, unlocks it, pulls the permit out of it and comes back over to Spitz
"THERE'S my permit, now put it down!"
Spitz blinks in disbelief and explains that that is all well and good, but if the permit is not in the vehicle he is towing BEFORE the tow, it doesn't count.
Nope, our man is insistent HE is in the right, he has a permit RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW so it DOES count.
Spitz reiterates, if it is not in the car, and it wasn't, then it's NO GOOD. The only car that permit gave permission to park was the van, which, BTW was in the wrong spot, right now, in fact, BOTH of your cars can be towed, the van for wrong space, the Volvo for no permit. (also in that pesky lease you signed, you stay OUT of visitor spaces, those are for visitors). Oh what a tangled web of Watergate-level skullduggery we've discovered! Someone who's master plan was... scamming a free parking space in violation of lease rules.
This is where it got really weird.
Not exactly a Twilight Zone Everyone-in-the-room-but-you-is-really-a-lizard-and-suddenly-rips-off-their-phony-skin moment.... but it's close.
Guy opens the door to the Volvo, and tosses the permit insdie, shuts the door, turns to Spitz and says "Prove that wasn't in there!"
"huh?"
"There's a permit in there NOW! So prove it WASN'T when you got here! You can't! SO you have to put me down!"
Sptiz does the worst thing in this situation, the WORST possible thing you can do, he busts out laughing.
"SEriously, Sir? I know it wasn't there because I JUST SAW YOU PUT IT IN THERE after taking it out of ANOTHER car."
"Yeah, but you can't PROVE it!"
Unable to believe where this is going, Spitz just shakes his head and laughs some more "I just saw you do it, man"
"I'm serious! Says the guy "You can't prove it so you can't charge me anything! Put it down or I'll..... CALL THE COPS!"
"Go ahead" says Spitz "and while they're on the way, I'll have another truck come down and tow that van, because it's illegal too, it can't be in visitors, and I don't think you'll be able to stand in front of both of them"
It was at this point that Elvis left the building and the guy agreed to pay, but let it be known that this entire thing was UNFAIR and ILLEGAL and he'd be CALLING OUR MANAGER ON MONDAY!!!!!
TLDR - Man tries to hustle his apartment regulations, buys only one permit for two vehicles and tries to hide this hustle by constantly swapping the singular permit between two different vehicles, gets caught doing it, lies like a Senator, outright denies reality, threatens to call cops when we don't buy lie, threatens to call our manager for our crime of not accepting his reality, ends up paying in the end, and life as it was, struggles on.
Or as we in the business call it "Tuesday"
I've 'Hoid of Illegal Parking, But That Was Ridiculous!
I've said it before, I shall now say it again, because the public keeps doing it.....
Friendly Neighborhood Towing will not, I repeat, NOT, be complacent in any crimes you commit, so don't call us for a tow for a "break down" at "400 Easy St" when the root cause is trying to clumsily hide a DUI. How do we know? Because neither of those "facts" proved true on our arrival.
Firstly, you weren't at 400 Easy. You were at about, oh, I dunno....looks like 550 Easy. Or, rather, what would HYPOTHETICALLY be 550 Easy if the street went that far. It doesn't. It ends in the 400 block, where the pavement stops and Easy Street Public Park begins. You apparently didn't notice this and kept going an extra hundred yards into said park.... and that's when you had your "break down", which was less "break down" and more "picked fight with children's jungle gym and lost" Fortunately this was 2am in winter, so no kids were imperiled when you decided to play on thier stuff with an Audi A4
Now, this is a free country, so if you feel like fleeing the scene of an accident where damage has occurred to persons or property, be our guest, but do it now, because we just called the cops and the station is only 3 blocks away, my guess is you have about 90 seconds of freedom left, and maybe only a minute more if you choose to bolt. Like I said, 2am, in winter? There isn't exactly a crowd to blend in with out there right now....
To their absolutely microscopic credit, they at least stayed put and took their medicine.
I know being drunk can have a negative effect on your cognitive abilities, but man, why do so many people think we won't notice and furthermore won't care about something as trivial as them menacing the public?
There's enough old senile guys in large cars out there who are LEGALLY making my drive to work a hazard every morning, and I'm not looking to play the commute game on "Expert" difficulty if I can help it! It's practically war out there! And if I see a chance to get an enemy driver off the road? In cuffs? YOU BET I'M TAKING IT!
You Think This Was Something? Stay Tuned for the Sequel!
Him - Dude, DUDE, DUDE! C'MON DUDE, SERIOUSLY? YOU ARE SERIOUSLY GOING TO DO THIS? DUDE! DUDE!!! I WAS LIKE, WHATEVER DUDE! I WAS ONLY HERE LIKE A MINUTE, ONE MINUTE DUDE!!!
Me - Well, you don't have a permit to be here, this is a private lot.
Him - C'MON DUDE! REALLY?! REALLY!??!
Me - Yes, the same rules apply to you as everyone else.
Him - DUDE!!!! REALLY?? REALLY DUDE??????!!!!! YOU... YOU, DUDE! SERIOUSLY!???? I... I. F*CK YOU I'M DONE TALKING TO YOU!!!!!
And that concludes this absolutely RIVETING episode of Pauly Shore Gets Towed, roll the credits please!
Cast
Pauly Shore -Sucky Customer
Argabraga -Himself
Copyright MMXVIII - Friendly Neighborhood Towing Productions
Filmed in exclusive Whine-o-Vision(tm)
Pauly Shore -Sucky Customer
Argabraga -Himself
Copyright MMXVIII - Friendly Neighborhood Towing Productions
Filmed in exclusive Whine-o-Vision(tm)
Godot Gets a Tow
It has NOT been Spitzilla's month, seems like he's gotten every rotten, stinking maladjusted, litigious, wants-to-fight person on the block as of late.
Makes you wonder what the poor guy did wrong in a past life.
He got it again the other night when he went over to Alphabet Plaza for a car without a permit. Well, more like a truck without a permit, and well, it had a permit, an expired one, that ran out in September of 2017 and had long had all the info baked off it by the sunlight. The only way we knew it was 2017 was because it was still a little purple, last year's color, as this year is a trendy pastel powder blue that's sure to make a statement darling!
And, once again, as soon as he was hooked, people materialized from the aether and wanted to argue. A pair of very loud and very (as you'll see) obnoxious women, as it turned out. And boy, did THEY have some comments and concerns about THIS one!
First that he couldn't tow the car because the owner 'was coming right down' for it.
Secondly, that they had a permit. (Expired by almost 5 months, but what's a half a year in the grand scheme?)
Thirdly, the owner was "coming right down" for it.
And, Fourthly, we were a bunch of jerks.
Well, whatever, Spitz decided to stop loading at that point and start on the paperwork since the owner was "coming right down" and Alphabet Plaza is only a four-story building, if he does it right, he should have all the pertinent info on the tow slip just as the unlucky third lady of the group gets down 4 flights of stairs.
Except... he's now done with the papers, and, there doesn't seem to be this promised vehicle owner anywhere around.
Spitz asks where she is, the other two ladies assure him, "She's coming right down"
"Well, got an ETA on that?" asks Spitz, because he kinda can't be here all night.
They whip out a phone, yammer a bit and assure him "She's coming!"
Yes, but how long?
"Twenty minutes"
*record needle scratch*
Huh? How can it take that long to get down some simple stairs, I know the stereotype is that women can take FOREVER to get ready before going out, but this is nuts! Even if she is in the bathroom.... with the rest of the herd.....
Well, turns out, Miss "Coming Right Down" is not in the building at all, she's not even on the property, or in the neighborhood, she's downtown at a bar. It seems that instead of paying our Borough's DRACONIAN fees for public parking, these two ladies told their friend to just park at their apartment for the night. Sure, NOTHING will happen!
Sptiz tells them that he's as patient as the next person, but, if he doesn't see Miss Coming Right Over in the next five minutes, he's leaving.
The dyspeptic duo scowl at him, their demeanor gets several levels bitchier, and they screech that they can't believe he won't wait for someone who is "Coming RIGHT over!"
Spitz reiterates, five minutes or he's leaving, since he's already hooked.
The two women then decide to SIT ON THE REAR BUMPER of the truck and declare they won't move.
Spitz tells them to get off there before they get hurt, as they're dangerously close to some seriously heavy moving hydraulics, in the dark.
They hiss at him to "Stop assaulting us!"
Woah, wha? Okay, now we've entered "no longer playing" territory. Spitz pulls out his phone.
"Okay, I'm calling the cops, you just accused me of comitting a crime and I won't stand for that."
The ladies chuckle a bit "Yeah, like you're calling the cops!"
"I am" says Spitz "You just claimed an assault happened, by me, no less, so when the officer gets here, you can tell him exactly what happened, because I'm NOT going to have someone claim I beat up a woman, not even in jest"
Another chuckle "You aren't calling the cops"
"I'm with communications right now" he says
Now, a little angry, a third callout - "you are NOT calling the cops!"
"Communications? Hi, Spitzilla, Friendly Neighborhood. Oh nothing much, who's the supervisor on tonight Sergeant Muck? or Corporal Moe? Moe? She may have to come down to Alphabet Plaza, I've got two ladies here accusing me of beating them up. What do they look like? Well...."
Oh, look at that, Spitz can't give a description of the two, because they've evaporated. They have high-tailed it so fast, I think they actually left behind two dust clouds in their exact same shape sitting on the back bumper of that truck, whose owner has, surprise, no yet shown up despite "Coming Right Down".
"Eh, nevermind, they left, but I'll let you know if we need Moe" says Spitz as he hops in the truck and completes the tow.
Miss "Coming Right Down" did in fact, come "right down" as in at 3pm the following day, to pick up the truck.
Your Mind Powers Will Not Work on us, Boy!
Let this be a warning, young Padawan. When you get an answer from us you do not like, usually in connection to a recent unrequested relocation of your personal vehicle, you cannot make it un-happen or not happen again in the future with the ol Jedi Mind Trick.
And yet you will still try? Won't you? Of course you will... at least this sourpuss will.
-Why da FUQ did you tow my car?!
-No swearing, please, Sir, now, the reason we have it is it was towed in for having an expired temporary permit. It was only good through Friday, got towed Sunday night going into Monday morning.
-Only two days it's out and you just TOWED IT?!
-Yes
-Well, you're not towing my car again.
-If we find it illegally parked, yes we will
-You're NOT towing my car again!
-Yes, if we find it illegally parked, we will
-You are NOT TOWING my car again!
-We will if we have to
-Listen fa**ot, I don't like having my car touched, and you touched it without my permission! You aren't doing that again, you do and there will be TROUBLE!
-Sir, you can stop threatening me right now, or you can step outside and someone else can come pick this car up.
-I'm not going anywhere, and you are NOT GOING TO TOW ME AGAIN!
Sir, I'm done arguing, you will be towed at every instance of illegal parking, and if you continue to be belligerent, the police will be called.
So he paid and left, and up to bat stepped the next hot prospect out of the minors to try HER luck. Surprisingly, she didn't question the tow (the cops called her in for blocking an alleyway) and she didn't accuse us of a malicious touching of her car and demand we pay for therapy session where they try to help it heal from such a shattering trauma, because she, like a normal person, understands her car is not a living, breathing thing. Unfortunately, the normalcy ended there because now it was payment time.
"I'm using my Grandma's credit card, let me call her here for the number."
"We cannot take a credit card over the phone, it has to be your card, in your name, and in front of us right now."
"Uh, but I don't want to use mine, I want to use her's."
"Like I just said, we cannot take a credit card over the phone, sight unseen."
"Okay, well, here, she's on the line now to give it to you."
"No, it has to be physically present, right here, right now, and it has to be your card in your name."
"You won't take it? SHe's right here, talk to her!"
"Miss... I'm not going to talk to her. There's nothing I can say to her I have not already said to you. We cannot use her card if she isn't here. You need a card, in your name, in your hand, right now, if you want to pay by credit card. That's the only way we can do it. No exceptions."
She started to say something again: "Well, what if I take a picture and..." but this is where Beantown, who had been dealing with someone else jumped into the fray.
"Look, he has explained it to you three times, very clearly, and I've been heah for all three of em! You can't use her cahd! You have to use your own! You do it our way-ah or you don't get the cah!"
She looked dejected, but, stopped sniveling and paid, with her own credit card, like she should have, 10 minutes ago.
Geeze Beantown, forget what I said about Pawtucket! I'm moving you clear up to AAA ball! All we need now is for one of the guys on the Sawx roster to get injured, and you're headed to The Show.
You'll be knockin' em out like Teddy Ballgame! Now, about our two rejects of the hominid assembly line. Quick question. If I handed you a hammer, and you smashed it on the back of your hand as hard as you possibly could, and it hurt like the dickens because you just fractured your knuckle, why on Earth would you keep smashing? While yelling YOU WILL NOT BREAK!!!! over and over again? Because that's essentially what you people did. Kept trying the same thing over and over and over again despite being told it would not work and lo and behold, it did not work.
Amazing really, two millennia of humanity carefully selecting for the best genes, and you get people doing things that an infinite amount of monkeys given an infinite amount of time would never ever DREAM of attempting for far longer than any sane primate would.... it's like the human genome has an upper counter limit like Pac Man, and reaching level 256 causes it to irreparably crash because nobody thought you'd ever go that high.
One of these days, I'm going to wake up and find that the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government have been taken over by chimps, gorillas and orangutans, respectively. Fine by me actually, something might actually get DONE around here, you guys hiring by chance? President Silverback said the economy was improving and banana production is up 4% in last night's Ape of the Union address......
How Do I Math my Reads?
When you get towed in by Friendly Neighborhood Towing, the driver fills out a tow slip. This will eventually become your receipt when you pay. Since the same mass-printed sheet has to serve for not only cars towed for illegal parking but also regular service calls and 911 calls, there's a line-item list on the bottom half of the page that includes things like the $60 clean-up fee for wrecks, the $40 protection fee for cars with windows left down and, since we have no idea how long it will take for you notice your car has disappeared, there's a line-item for "storage, _____ days at $_________"
None of these were ticked off on your paperwork, and the corresponding lines/boxes adjacent to them? They were not filled in. With anything.
The only thing that appeared on your tow slip was "$170" in the "Base Tow Fee" box and "$20" for "Dollies" Everything else on that page, was blank, all the way down to the bottom line where it said "Stone Cold Said So" er, no, it said "Total $190"
This was all wayy wayy wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too confusing for our heroine in this story. She looked over this, and wanted to know why we "charged her [sic] for storage"
"We didn't"
"But it's on the bill"
"Yes, a place for it to be added is there, but the lines next to it are blank, you weren't charged"
"oh.... but, why did I get charged for protection?"
*sigh* "You didn't"
"But it says right here!"
"That's if you leave a window down and we have to cover it up, or your sunroof open, you didn't, so we didn't, so we didn't charge for it. The box next to it is empty. THe only charges you have are $170 for the tow and $20 for dollies"
"Oh, so why did you double-charge me?"
*SIGH* "Double charge?"
"Yes! There are TWO things on here!"
"I just said, one is the $170 for your tow, the other is $20 because we had to use dollies, 170 and 20 together make 190. That's your total, that's what you paid. "
"But... what's ..."
"You know what? I don't care! I'm done explaining this, you owed $190, you paid $190, now just get OUT of here!"
And she did.
Well, that was interesting. You know, Yogi Berra may have summed up this very conundrum best when he famously said "90% of baseball is mental, the other half is physical"
I'm with you -405% there, Chief.
I Do Not Think Those Words Mean What you Think They Mean
Guy gets towed out of Bad Foundation Arms for having no permit for that apartment's lot. When he comes in to get the car, he is absolutely livid that we towed him out of visitor's parking.
We inform him that there is no visitor parking at Bad Foundation Arms, never has been, never will be, its by permit only.
Nope, our hero is adamant that he parked RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE SIGN THAT SAID VISITORS! And as soon as he gets his car back, he'll go down there and take a picture of it an that will PROVE we're a bunch of thievin' varmints!!!!
Well, okay, you do that wild man, because there is no such sign down there.
So, he trots off, and about five minutes later is back with his cellphone held high, he had the proof! Absolute video proof of the most shocking miscarriage of justice seen this young Century! With the posture of a conquering Roman general presenting the Emperor with the captured King of the Gauls, he thrusts the phone in Towing Manager's face and says "HERE!"
To which Towing Manager strokes his chin and says "Sir, that sign says "Compact Car Only" "
The guy looked like he just got punched in the gut by one of those six foot high radioactive mutant monstrosities that shamble around in post-apocalyptic first-person-shooters and kill your character for fun and profit.
He pulls the phone back, looks at it in disbelief.... and then quietly walks out. That was anticlimactic, no? I don't believe anything has sunk that far and that fast since the Royal Navy caught up with the Bismarck in 1941.....
Really? My man, you didn't even PROOF read that? Even as you were TAKING IT'S PICTURE, you didn't notice what the sign actually said? It was only THREE WORDS!!!! THREE! You could stick your hand in the industrial equipment of your choice and probably STILL have enough meat left on your stumps to count that high! Dear Lord.....
Humanity is doomed my friends, I used to hold out some foolish, prideful hope, but now I'm calling it. 2018 was the year of no return. Oh sure, it brought us some great things, didn't it? Like internal combustion, hula hoops, peanut butter, prop comedians, the smallpox vaccine, highly organized crime, the ability to purchase goods on credit, being at the top of the food chain, gummy candy, the ability to instantly access over 10,000 unique pictures of kitty cats that look like Hitler, from your phone..... man, it was a heck of a ride, too bad it had to end so ingloriously.
Anyone needs me, I'll be over here tearing up the last shreds of my optimism, purely to deny the rest of ya'll the pleasure!
Aaaaaaaaand sleep......
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.
Comment