Towing Blues

I feel I should toss out a caveat before I start. I also feel like sometimes I should change the name of this blog to Billy Tosses Out A Caveat. I'm also laughing to myself knowing how much Bif doesn't like the word caveat...

I have little empathy for people who get their cars towed.

Yup, it sucks. You betcha, it costs a lot of money, money that you probably don't have and would be better spent elsewhere even if you did have it. Uh huh, uh huh, I do know that heart stopping panic of 'has my car been stolen, or just towed away'. Man don't I know it, parking is getting tougher and tougher out there. Still, I gotta say: You bend the parking rules, you run the risk of getting towed - nobody's fault but your own.

I've had vehicles towed a large number of times, most of those times in San Francisco. Every time it happened, I knew fully well that if I left vehicle in this spot past a certain amount of time, it could be towed. And parking enforcement in San Francisco seems to have a special, almost sexual, fondness for towing cars; the streets are coated with parking god jizz.

Have you really lived in San Francisco if you have not been forced to visit the urban hell box that is City Tow? It's one that's been pondered for ages.

There was, and probably still is, a stretch of parking spots in front of the DMV in San Francisco that become tow away spots at 7AM. They were always sort of last resort spots as you didn't want to run the risk of sleeping through your alarm and having to make that trek down to City Tow. Well, one morning this of course happened. I awoke at about 30 seconds to 7, threw on shorts and a shirt and ran barefoot out to the car. Sure enough, parking enforcement and a tow truck were already there. I cried out hoarsely for them to stop and after a few minutes the tow truck drove away without its intended victim. As I was getting into the car, the officer said, "the tow driver's pissed." I looked at the officer as if he asked if he could pee on my bed for five dollars and said "so what" with all the venom I could muster.

But when your car has been towed for seemingly no reason as ours was yesterday, well I'll admit there was a little rage; a little foot stomping, desire to tell complete strangers on the street to lick your balls rage. One, car was legally parked with not a towing sign in sight. Two, we hardly use the damn car.

So, I detoured my walking tour home to include the sad little mobile shack that serves as the tow truck office. I tried to remind myself that it wasn't the fault of the guy behind the desk so don't give him attitude, but the man moved at a pace that made road kill look positively kicky. I imagined him coming to work in a battered Dodge from a transient hotel where he cooked soup on a hot plate and muttered alone about "these darn compooters".

I paid, and went to retrieve the car from the pocked and puddled lot, surrounded in this sad foster home by other abused and neglected cars.

After calming down and thinking about it, while I still say that the spot was legal, it was tempting the good graces of the parking gods. And so I shall make the proper sacrifices, walk the straight and narrow for awhile, and check off 'visit to city tow yard' off of my Things I Haven't Done In Seattle Yet list.