The Tow Files: Octo-brawl

So named because everyone wanted to fight with us this weekend, probably because it was homecomming and that meant everyone was a bit prelubed on the processed corn chip snacks and alcohol even BEFORE the home team won the game.... and those that weren't should have strongly considered it because if they're passed out on a couch somewhere, they can't come in here and bug me like... well, this. BEHOLD:

Durn You Rock Chewing Morons

I mean it, I need to call up our sign/t-shirt printing source and have them make me up a batch of labels I can start sticking to rocks around here that say "DO NOT CHEW" because if I don't, people are going to try and eat the palm-sized ones convinced they're really scones or something.... How do I know? It's because the bar for "average" intelligence went PLUMMETING, Fosberry FLOPPING as it were just as soon as the opening kickoff. Such a cavalcade of the meta cognitively deficient.

I Say it's YOUR F'n Problem!

*Background: Global Domination Reality makes up about 80% of our parking lots, the remaining 20% is a mish-mash of smaller companies, some with 2 or 3 lots, some with only 1, some with as few as 2 spaces because they rent the driveway of a house-cum-apartment where you can just barely fit 2 cars back to back. For these smaller companies, we buy a gross of 500 lime-green hang tags from a printer that are blank except for the bottom where it says "Towing Provided by Friendly Neighborhood Towing, XXX-XXXX" The rest is just blank horizontal lines where whoever we give them to can write an address and license plate # so they can easily check their lot or have us do it for them or have their tenants ring us if they come home and find that there's a party in their parking spot, and everyone's been invited.*

So much for the exposition, making me monologue like an Evil World-Endangering Villain (tm) while behind my back James Bond is using his gadget filled wristwatch to cut through the rope, pick the padlock on his chains and spray anesthetizing gas all over the pet crocodiles and I'll turn around only to find a PPK stuck in my grinning megalomaniacal maw and asking that I kindly fork over the remote for the Death-Dealer (tm) ray ..... *sigh* But it's needed to explain why this next person was just so darn stupid.

The phone rings.....

"Yeah, I live at 404 Suck St, which space is mine?"

"Parking space? We don't have the information."

"Why the f*ck not? You're the ones who give out permits! Check the list!"

"What list? We hand out blanks Sir, but we don't assign number spaces, that's for you landlord to do. If they didn't write it on there, and you can't remember where you belong, you need to call them."

"Why the F*CK don't you know? Your name is on the permits!"

"Because we don't assign spaces, we can't give you information we don't have."

"You've been been a REAL F*CKIN' HELP!!! " *CLICK*!

Wait, wait, don't hang up sir, I just remembered where you're supposed to park! 837 S Main St! In the rear, behind the wooden fence and the metal sliding gate!!!!! Just swing by and I'll open er' for ya!

Jerkoff....... if anyone needs me, I'll be over here calling the water department and demanding they tell me my credit card balance........ has the same chance of success.

We Make a Better Window Than a Door

To the guy who walked in to redeem his towed car:

There was no need to kvetch about us "not being open" when you came by earlier this morning. We are open 24/7.

The reason you "couldn't get in" was because you apparently spent between 5 and 10 minutes pounding on the darkened, locked and not-for-entry garage door on the opposite end of the building, where there are NO signs saying this is the public entrance, unlike the side that faces the STREET where there's a wide open (but not for long, winter is coming.....) glass door and ENORMOUS signs that say "FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD TOWING & AUTOCARE" that the owner just paid quite a few figures to upgrade and had installed on the ROOF with a CRANE to augment the existing ground-level one......

Yet you still pounded and pulled on the roll up door on the side of the building that, had you somehow pried it open, would have only let you into the darkened service dept. that is not open Sundays, and does NOT house your car. Or ANY cars right now since it's cleared, swept and hosed at 6pm every Friday. Only thing in there is toolboxes, (the tools clock in on MOnday) and if you even LOOK at Little Ricky's toolbox funny, well, he's tired of the tool mooching to the point where he's threatened to put the next man who "borrows" his SAE sockets in a deep, dark hole, possibly holes.

(He doesn't know I'm the one doing it just to gaslight him until he snaps and murders the guy who works in the bay next to his that nobody likes

)

Nor would the roll up door to the right of that one get you anywhere, that only leads into the bodyshop where there aren't any cars either, just parts of cars, like Frankenstein's Lab, scattered around, and the look on your face when you, fumbling in the dark, find the light switch back in the far corner by the industrial strength frame-straightening rack that has enough "oomph" to pull a bent up pickup straight again, and the first thing you see upon dousing the scene in light is that rusty metal... thing.... with the chains and binders and clevises and hooks and turnbuckles hanging off it.... boy will YOU be beating a hasty retreat.

So, it's probably best you didn't enter through either of those doors, but, why you tried, is beyond me.

I mean, even your WIFE who was with you told you to cool it, SHE apparently told you you weren't on the right side of the building, but you chose not to believe it and went off to get coffee and sulk for a couple hours before trying again...... maybe you just would rather be wrong than emasculated and wrong, at the same time at least.

Oh, and it was a rental that got towed, so you didn't know the make/model/color, either. Which makes me wonder how you ever expected to find it and return it... for people like him, they really need to invent a biodegradable car that if they can't find it within 48 hours, it'll just break down into fodder for the birds and scavengers.... kinda like how the old Chevy Vega used to do, seriously, those cars had rust holes by the time they reached the end of the assembly line.

Supreme Fail

What part of the "Don't have it" didn't you get? Was it the "Don't" or the "Have it"?

You called us at 7AM looking for your car

Your car was towed from Northside Park

We told you we don't have it, that's a lot that belongs to Other Guys Towing, and to call them.

It's now 9AM

You just walked into the office, and asked for your car because you "think" we towed it.

Well, we still don't have it

Northside Park still isn't our lot

Other Guys Towing probably has it, STILL has it, just like we said they did.

Okay, we'll check the paperwork just to humor you.

Nope, still don't have a car we told you two hours ago we didn't have from a lot we don't do that's done by different dudes.

Is it a case of not listening, not believing or not comprehending? That's led you to this sick, sad, sorry state? Or all the of above?

And it's not like you have advanced age to fall back on as an excuse, you look barely 18.....

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh..........

If this is human intelligence today, only two generations removed from me, we're in REAL trouble of losing out in the evolutionary race....not to just the lesser Primates either, I'm talking about losing to the PLANTS.

You know what? SCREW IT! I see which way the Kool-Aide is flowing! I'm switching league allegiances here! From now on, I'm rooting (c whut I did thar? HAR HAR) for team FLORA!!!! Go team go! At least YOU don't go places you aren't told to go to! And don't wilt under pressure, like the Pittsburgh Pirates do, every freakin' year.....

And don't let me down you cell-walled bastards, I can still go team mineral! Go GRAPHITE!!!

Miss Entitled

Miss entitled has a problem, she's, well entitled.

So entitled, she can't be bothered with directions. Namely, that to get her car out of impound, since she just paid for it, she has to walk out the front door, turn left, walk past those two roll up doors to where the fence starts, make another left and wait at the metal gate for it to open, bam, done, she can drive off to be pretentious somewhere else.

Nope, this is all way way wayyyyyyyyyy too confusing for the likes of her. She demands an escort.

Huh?

Yes, she wants one of us to come out from behind the counter and LEAD her to where she needs to go, our directions of "take two lefts and stop at gate" are apparently "too confusing" and "not making sense"

Well, that's not going to happen.

Why? Because you're a big girl, you can figure this out.

No, we don't "owe" you for the "inconvenience" you did that to yourself when you called those "no parking" signs a bluff, and they weren't.

Nope, you want your car, you go get it. And look on the bright side, by the looks of it, you have a whole eight hours to find it before we start tacking on storage.

I think the prospect of actually trodding on the same ground as us mere mortals was just that reprehensible.

Where DO people get these jumbo-sized egos anyway? I can't seem to find any larger than "Trial size" and "fun size" in the stores around here. Is that something you have to order from overseas and sneak through customs by taping it to the small of your back and playing it cool until you get to the taxi outside?

In Which I Encounter Definitely NOT Fake Permits

Oh my, what have we here? Seems like there's an abundance of cars in this lot. Strange, I've only seen the same three here day in and day out all year. And now, coincidentally, on homecoming weekend, that number has doubled, there's six?

Hmmm, something not quite right here, and not in the way Cousin Merle "ain't been quite right" lately....

See, from where I'm sitting, I can see the backs of the "permits" hanging from the rearview mirrors, and I'm seeing color. I shouldn't.

Real Global Domination Reality permits are day-glo colored on the front, and white on the back where a "REMOVE BEFORE DRIVING SO YA DON'T SUE US WHEN YA RUN DOWN GRANDPA" warning is printed in black lettering. From where I see it, the backs of those permits are day-glo orange just like the fronts, and have no lettering.... uh oh.

Fakes

Just gotta confirm the kill now.

Oh yeah, they all have the exact same serial number at the bottom 000038.... the only thing different among them is the fact the printer that puked em' up was apparently getting low on colored ink, as each one left-to-right was a bit more desaturated than the one before it, with the very last being monochrome. Like you were painting them with a radioactive isotope with an extremely short half-life!

And the blue Dodge Neon on the end has the REAL permit..... uh oh. Tower sense is tingling..... it's like I'm being............. watched............

AH, up there on the balcony, I see faces observing me, I give the "you, out here" motion, someone comes out on the deck.

"These your cars?"

"Uh... yeah"

"Permits in em' are fake, get em' outta here"

"What? My permit isn't FAKE!"

"Yeah, the one in the Dodge here is real, but these other three are fakes, move them now please, they can't be here without permits"

"THEY ARE NOT FAKE!"

"Yes they are, the numbers match on them, and one of them is a clear photocopy, move them now or I'll to them"

"How 'bout you just the the f*ck out of my yard?!"

"This isn't your yard, it belongs to Global Domination Reality, and these cars don't have permits from GDR to park here, this is your last warning to move them now or I'll just tow them"

"The do NOT have fakes!"

"yes, they do, the numbers match"

"The DO NOT!"

"Yes, they do, they all say #38, the numbers on real permits do not repeat"

"My permit ISN'T FAKE!!!!"

"Yes, the one in this car isn't fake, but these other three are, last chance to move them before I tow"

"How about I come down there and stop you?!"

"How about I call the cops and have you arrested?"

"They ARE NOT FAKE!" (by now, another person has come out on deck, asks whats going on, first person tells them that "this jerk says we have fake permits" because, well, they do)

"Look, they're fake, the numbers are identical, and that one over there is black-and-white, it's a HORRIBLE attempt at a fake, and I'm done arguing, I'm going to go around the block here, (durn that 15 minute wait) and when I get back, anyone with a fake that's still hanging out here is leaving with me. You step in front of me, or the truck, and the police WILL be here and WILL charge you with disorderly conduct."

"JERK!"

"Whatever"

Naturally, by the time I got around the block, the three definately NOT fakes were out of the lot....

Now the REAL fun begins.. next week, I get to see what deviltry they try and pull to get passive-aggressive with me for ruining their plan for free football parking, you know, the NERVE of me getting angry with them for FORGERY! What's the world coming to?!

My guess, they try to take the car with the good permit, let their buddies in, and then park it in the entranceway to keep me out.

Too bad that would count as a travel lane violation..... even if you DID have a permit, and those are immediate tows, one of the few that are excepted under the Borough's 15-minute grace rules.

We'll see, but they seemed that perfect mix of dumb and belligerent to actually try it.

Wherein We ROCK!

Speaking of belligerent, you know the old joke about how if you start a band, and you try real hard, but before Jodie quits and Jimmy gets married, you'll realize you'd have never gotten far..... (:P) GOTCHA!

Ahem, what I really mean to say is, you know that old trope about how in a 4 piece garage band, the drummer is the dumb one?

Well, it's true.

How do I know?

Because the illegally-parked station wagon called into us that was trying to hide ostrich-like at the very bottom of that apartment parking garage, in the last little cubbyhole, had a drum kit stuffed inside of it. (and the car next to it had the guitars and amps, and was likewise illegally there with no permit)

Now, because someone else took that exact same time of day to break down in the middle of an intersection, the resulting 911 took one of two available trucks, so only Randy was up and only managed to nab the drummer's car. When he dropped it and went back for the guitarist, he found the band gathered around said car, clearly wondering where the wagon had went.... Randy tells them it'll be $130 at the shop to pick it up.

So far, nothing more than a tow that's good for a laugh about "breaking up the band" Randy told the joke to Twitch when he got back and we all had a chuckle.

Fast forward about an hour or so. That's when the encore performance went down.

Call comes in for an illegal over at 150 Prestone St. And Twitch is the next man up. As the info filters through over the radio, I realize with amusement the car being described as over at 150 Prestone is the drummers station wagon, again! And, the lot manager calling it in has specifically warned us there's an 'obvious' fake permit in the car we are to ignore.

I told ya the drummer ain't the smart one, didn't I?

So, Twitch, being super sneaky, manages to get over to 150 and creep in the back entrance, avoiding alerting anyone the party on the front porch, and gets the drummers wagon up in the air. And indeed, the fake in it is laughably bad. It's a photo copy of the lime green permits that are supposed to be in that lot, with badly aliased edges around the letters and the handwriting on it is IDENTICAL to the one in the car next to it, down to every single squiggle and stroke of the pen, oit's bviously the real original that was fed into the machine to produce the pale stereotype.

But, Twitch doesn't have much time to admire this adventure in counterfeiting , because here comes the owner. Again.

"Aw man! you alreadly got me once today, again? really?"

"Yep" Twitch says, "$75"

"You can't cut me a break"

"Nope"

"C'mon, nobody knows your here! Just put it down and cut me a break, I can't keep shelling out cash like this, I'm already losing money on this gig!"

"Nope"

"You won't just put it down? Be a nice guy?"

"Nope, are you going to pay, or do I have to tow?"

"So you think you're some kind of tough guy? Huh?"

Woah, what brought that on? Probably the fact the rest of the band has now caught on that the drummer's left the stage and have materialized around Twitch, and they're starting to jaw at him as well. This, for those of you playing at home, is a BAD thing to do to a part-time repo agent. Unlike your doddering old Aunt Mabel, Twitch WILL fight if cornered, and unlike Aunt Mabel, hasn't had his rabies shots this year.

"I'm tough enough that I don't have to take this crap, you can start paying or I'm going to start leaving"

"You won't go anywhere if we jump you!!! You think you can take us all on?! That it tough guy?!"

So, we've gone from rock band, to rock em' sock em' band? Twitch sizes up the situation and pulls the long dolly bar off his truck. Steel, 3'' thick, long as a Louisville Slugger.

"Okay, here's how it's going to go. You can either pay for a drop now, or pay more for a full tow at the shop, or, you can all be really stupid and come at me, and if you do, the first TWO of ya that get close enough are going to the hospital WITH me, one in each hand."

They paid

Gee, I wonder why?

THough that one was partially on me, before Twitch left on that call, he had another of his favorite kind of tows. A car with Ontario plates! You know how much Twitch LOOOOOOOOOOOVES them Canucks. I don't think it helped that we were parked side-by-side when the call came across the radio and I chose that moment to break out in "O Canada" loud enough that he had to crank up his CCR mix tape to drown me out with a really really filthy look....

One of these days, he's probably going to put ME in the hospital.

Just wait till Tuesday, we'll see how he reacts to me taking that 2hr violation tire-marking chalk and writing "TOUGH GUY PARKING ONLY" on the pavement behind his Jeep in the employee lot as I was leaving.

The next Tow File just MIGHT be coming to you straight outta' traction.

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