Monday, April 30, 2007

Happy Monday, M&%$er!


There is no feeling worse than walking bleary-eyed to your car and finding another car in its place.

Your mind races, "Did I park here?"

"Maybe I am on another street?"

"Did I ride my bike and space it?"

Once you backtrack and assure yourself that you did indeed park your car in this spot late last night, you realize it is one of two possibilities, you got robbed or towed.

This is the second time I got my car towed in Burlington and, like the first time, it was surprisingly not too awful (and was oddly around the exact same time last year).

But why is it that every time I get my car towed I am dressed entirely inappropriately?

Exhibit A: Note the same pair of fuzzy pink boots that must inspire tow trucks to nab me.

Last night they swept the streets of Burlington. Apparently, most people who live IN Burlington knew about this but living in South Burlington, I was totally clueless.

The city put up little yellow signs on 3 feet high sticks around town. Of course, the street I parked on did not have any little yellow signs but that didn't stop them from towing me.

I listened to the sweepers driving up and down the streets late last night and it made me think of the Bay Area where they have year round signs alerting you to street sweeping dates.

When you park anywhere in the Bay Area, you make a point of reading the street sweeping signs to make sure you don't get a ticket. They don't bother to tow you but who wants a ticket.

This is partly why I check signs so carefully when I park anywhere. I am trained after many years and many tickets in Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco. I ain't no dummy. Well, a bit of a dummy.

This morning the City of Burlington towed my car down to the Coast Guard's lot at the waterfront and left a nice orange $95 ticket on the windshield. Am I contesting it, you bet your pink silly shoes I am.

It wasn't that far of a walk and it was an excuse to cuss out loud and stroll down by the water where the clouds were fittingly petulant and stormy.

From this day forth I will just assume that every time I wear my pink fuzzy boots and silly around-the-house-clothes, my car will be gone and I will have another towing adventure ahead of me.

Hopefully none of them will be as awful as getting towed in Oakland which will always be remembered as one of the weirdest days of my life (remember Nessa?!).

6 comments:

digibudi said...

It must have been definetely the boots. The boots are fly, and therefore police and other bugs can smell you.. They know,'here's the car of a woman with superfly boots.. we must do something about THAT!' and there you have it.. Superfly PinkBoots come with a price in society.. you are brave!

Eva the Deadbeat said...

you crack me up. 'tis true, pink fluffy boots are sure to elicit evil - that is just how it goes in the universe. that is why i generally only wear the boots around the house like slippers, i like to keep the evil at bay...

what does the water by your house look like? i love living near Lake Champlain, it is dark and stormy at times. can't wait till we can swim in it.

Anonymous said...

One time, my girlfriend at the time came over and parked her car in my parking lot. Since its assigned parking, one of my lovely neighbors had her car towed while we were out eating. Lame.

After calling my landlord and trying to figure out how we were going to pull together $X (whatever it was going to cost; neither of us had any cash), I decided to drive down the street to the Mobil station next to the Verizon store as I'd seen tow trucks always coming and going from that place.

Sure enough, there was her car sitting in the gas station, all by its lonesome. Since there was no one around, we stole her car.

What were they going to do about it?

Eva the Deadbeat said...

man, you guys are criminals! taking the law into your own hands! i am impressed.

i just write LONG annoying letters explaining exactly WHY I am not sending these bastards any $$$.

Yeah, that's sticking it to the law, what is the emoticon for thumbing your nose at authority!?

Miss Molly Manglewood said...

That dollar bill made me laugh out loud! So brilliantly simple and childish. Fartfartfart. I'm going to go do that to all the 1s in my wallet. Toot toot!

Eva the Deadbeat said...

Isn't that FART money genius? my next sick day I am going through my wallet - how could I not have thought of that when I was younger?!