010806About two minutes after Joe left, I heard a soft knock on the door. As it swung open, Joe reappeared in my apartment. I began looking around my room and asked "What did you forget?"
"What?" I spat in disbelief as I sprung from my computer chair and headed to the window. Sure enough, in the parking spot where a black Dodge Durango had sat hours before was nothing. I noticed the car to the left of his vacant spot held a silver sedan...with a boot. "Mother fuckers!" I yelled out the window at no one in particular. "They can't do this. They can't fucking do this. There are NO SIGNS that say you can't park there!" I could feel my heart begin to pump harder and faster. My body temperature rose as I stood at the window, staring in disbelief at the empty parking spot. Just then, a red tow truck came into view and drove into the lot. The driver got out and removed the boot, then readied to haul it away to the same expensive fate as Joe's SUV. Joe joined me at the window. "I'm gonna go talk to the guy," he said, his voice maintaining the level of calm mine was missing.
Once I pushed through the front doors and into the daylight, I watched the driver hand Joe a business card, presumably with the towing company's address on it. I interrupted their conversation and pointed at the row of empty spots.
I walked briskly to the spot he pointed at and found a tiny sign about one-and-a-half feet from the ground designating the seven spaces directly in front of my building for permit holders. I'd never seen the sign before in my life and wouldn't be surprised if the management company had erected it the night before, giving them the "right" to tow the entire lot come morning. When I continued to berate the asshole who was wrecking mine and my boyfriend's morning, he told me to call the maintenance guy because he had nothing to do with this. Yeah right, I thought. With Joe following behind, I stormed upstairs and got a hold of Mr. Maintenance. I yelled at him through my cell phone, listing off the reason why the Durango shouldn't have been towed and why he sucks at life. When he had enough of my ranting, he passed the phone off to the manager, Karen. By this time, I was so hopped up on adrenaline and anger that my voice reached a new level of high-pitchedness I never knew existed. That and I was forgetting to breathe, so I spoke even faster in an attempt to get everything out before I had to inhale. She didn't give me the answer I was looking for, so I hung up and let out a frustrated groan into my bedroom. Joe had been watching the entire ordeal from my computer chair and suggested we might as well drive to the impound lot since no amount of yelling was going to bring his car back. The company, Gopher Towing, is located off of Broadway and Central, on a shady side street full of abandoned cars and massive potholes. I parked in front of a "No Parking" sign and snorted at the irony, wondering if they had the balls to tow me 10 feet. I slammed my door, ready to give yet another person a piece of my mind. Joe, sensing my continued rage, warned, "Just don't yell at them. It won't do any good." I obeyed and followed him inside of a windowless room with dingy white walls. There was a glass divider with a piece of foam shoved in the opening used to slide cash or credit cards through for payment. I wondered if anyone had ever tried to break through the divider, strangling the employee who had impounded their precious automobile. A laminated sign to the right of the window explained the charges, which started at $200 for the basic towing fee and included an impressive list of made-up expenses to do further damage to a "customer's" wallet. I glanced at a book on the other side of the divider, a record of all vehicles towed by the company. The last eight entries, all dated today, read "Stone Arch Apartments."
When a grungy-looking man in his late 20s removed the foam, he asked what vehicle was ours and began adding up the damages. It totaled around $270. The man slid Joe a copy of the charges to sign. The paper said a boot had been placed on his vehicle around 9:20 a.m. and that the towing occurred shortly after noon, mere minutes after we'd woken up. It also had a list of damages on his car. "Scratches on the hood?" Joe asked, surprised. "It was replaced a month ago. There better not be any scratches on the hood."
The man told us to go to the third door. Only one of us could go inside and drive out. Joe took the lead, so I slowly walked to the entrance and peered inside. A row of cars sat inside, all victims of some greedy bastard's evil ploy to make money. Joe circled his Durango, looking for any signs of abuse. Finding none, he got in and drove outside. The door creaked close behind him. He got out and pulled me into a hug. In that instant, all the rage I'd felt through the hour ordeal came spilling out my tear ducts. I buried my head in Joe's fleece jacket, hoping he wouldn't notice. He heard me sniffle and pulled away.
"Mother fuckers," I mumbled.
|