Tickets

A tale to tell:

Last Wednesday, we received a fairly large snowfall. In Champaign, if the snow is high enough, they send out plows to clear the sides of the street on certain "snow routes." We live on one. During the last snowfall, I was reminded on the radio that I needed to move our cars to a side street and I also had a note on my car telling the same. I came home that evening from work and moved them both. No problem.

So fast forward to last Wednesday. Same situation, but I completely forgot to move our vehicles. I come home late on Wednesdays due to rehearsal, and I hopped into my PJs and set down to spend some family time. At one point, Shannon yelled, "They're towing your car!" I immediately hopped up and ran to the front door, and yelled out to the tow truck folks, "Stop! I'm coming!" I ran to the back room, furiously searching for some blue jeans. I threw some shoes on (mind you, without socks in near-zero degree weather) and darted out the front door. I ran down to my Intrepid and luckily, they didn't tow me. I did realize, however, that our Prism had already been towed. I removed the "snow route" ticket from the windshield and started the car. The snow plow was right behind me, waiting for me to move so he could continue on down the street.

I had just cleaned everything (and I mean everything) out of the Intrepid that very day, as I had found a buyer for it, so I had no snow scraper, and the windshield was caked with snow and ice. I tried scraping it off with my (bare) hands, to no avail. Again, the pressure was on due to the snow plow impatiently waiting behind me. So I improvised: I drove around the block in the now-abandoned parking lane, with the car door open and my head hanging out the window (did I mention it was cooooold?).

I parked the car on a side street. I ran back into the house and started calling around to find where in the heck the Prism is. The police gave me the names of five different towing companies that they use; I called them all, and none knew where the car was. After another half-hour of calls, we finally found where it was. Since the parking attendant (aka Spawn of Satan) had also informed me that the Prism had a hold on it due to an expired sticker (honest mistake), Shannon asked the towing place receptionist if we needed to do anything before they would let us get it out. The lady said she didn't think so. Hmm.

I called a friend that evening (it's almost 10:30 by now) and asked him if he could take me to the tow company in the morning. He acquiesced and came by the next morning at 7:30. We drove to the other end of Urbana and wandered around for far too long, trying to find the darn place. When we finally came upon it, I hopped out, only to find that they couldn't release the car. Yep, you guessed it, we had to get a new sticker and then go to the police department and have the hold taken off. That would have been nice to know in advance.

Shan made the necessary calls and trips that afternoon, and then picked me up from work to get the Prism. We paid all the fees and trekked home. Playing it safe, we made sure both cars were parked on the side street. No need to repeat that fiasco.

There's more. I awoke the next morning to find two new tickets on the cars (one on each), for parking the wrong way on the side of the street. For Pete's sake . . . it's not like I parked the wrong way on a one-way street in downtown Chicago. I didn't even know there was a law against this!

Total tally:

First ticket on Prism: $20
Towing fee on Prism: $100
New sticker for Prism: $105
First ticket on Intrepid: $15
Second ticket on Prism: $30
Second ticket on Intrepid: $30


Total: $300

Oh yeah, I can't find the title for the Intrepid, so I have to buy another one before I sell it. Another 65 bucks.