matthew’s alibi

This morning I found myself in my second tow truck of the month.

Herein lies the trouble with writing a blog when you’re as busy as I am these days - you probably didn’t know I’m managed to get a car (much less already had it towed once this month). Or that I’d gotten a job. Or a fab apartment on Hollywood Boulevard. But I did, and this morning at 7:15 AM, I was watching all three recede from the front seat of a tow truck headed for the Hollywood OPG (see, I’m even learning the terminology.)

An OPG is an “Official Police Garage,” which means that they charge you about twice to three times as much as a regular garage would, because they can, and you’ll pay it, if you want your car back. See, the aforementioned fab apartment on Hollywood Boulevard unfortunately doesn’t include a parking space, so that leaves me parking on the street. Parking on the Boulevard itself is only ok until 7 AM. I usually leave for the office before 7 AM… but since I’m getting more comfortable with the drive (which takes a half hour or so most days), I’ve been leaving a little later. I forgot that I had parked in the time-limited space this morning, and by the time it occurred to me and when after hustling out front, I arrived just in time to see my car settle into clutches of the tow truck.

I did some pleading, but to no avail. I asked what I could do to get my car back then and there, and he said nothing, but I could ride along with him to the garage. He was a nice enough guy, and I figured I had little to gain by giving him a hard time, so, surreally, I hopped in the tow truck and made small talk with the driver. He apparently used to be a hippie, and had been through West Virginia in 1968 (a Freedom Rider without a sense of direction, I wondered? but alas, no, just a hitchhiker).

They didn’t charge me the $25 for storage, which I suppose was nice of them (I think he felt badly for me), which brought the total for the tow to just over $140, not counting the $65 for the parking ticket, which is time-stamped 7:19 AM - which means he was printing it as I walked out the door.

The tow truck driver also pointed out that I was likely driving a stolen car, since almost all of the VIN tags have been removed. Had I a little more common sense, it would have occurred to me to wonder about the missing VINs before that point, but in my frazzled state. It was the most I could do at the time to sputter out “well that didn’t show up on the Carfax!”

I hadn’t planned on going to work today, but they were doing a mailing and wondered if I could come in and help out. In the end, I was only fifteen minutes late, and my plight earned me lots of sympathy in the office, and inspired a spirited discussion about fighting tickets. One of the interns working with me went down to feed her meter in the mid-morning, and was physically putting the coin in the meter when a traffic enforcement meanie pulled over and started writing her a ticket. She asked if he was writing a ticket for her, pointing out that she was feeding the meter before he started writing the ticket. He told her nastily that she could contest it after she paid it. She stared incredulously, and he sneered “any more questions?”

So, there’s clearly some bad parking karma in my corner of the world today. Mercifully, the day is nearly over, and now I’m sitting on my apartment’s enormous patio, overlooking the pool, the gorgeous purple, pink and blue sunset, and a line of palm trees and it’s easy to forget about parking nazis and tow trucks.