Heres the story.
I go downtown and during rush hour amazingly find a free parking spot infront of a parking meter that no one has grabbed. I know im gonna be awhile so i plop my 3 bucks worth of quarters in and im set for a whole hour, this is around 4:45pm.
I was even more proud of myself because this time i was able to park right in front of the building i had to go to and not have to end up parking a half dozen blocks away. This is in the HEART of downtown.
So i come back down around 5:30 to plop some more quarters in the parking meter. I walk around the corner to the parking meeter and to my astonishment there was no car!! I thought "Damn, must of been late in putting my change into the meter, damn them for towing me and not ticketing me first!", but when i examine the meter closer i noticed i still had a good 10 mins left on it!! So now im like "damn its been stolen" and start lookin distraught. There were no other cars parked on the side of the street btw. That was when a nice lady who noticed the classic various expressions on my face (shock, anger, shock, despair) politely approached me and in a grandmotherly tone said, "your cahr got towed Jack!" No my name isnt jack, but thats beside the point. I pointed out to her that my meter still had 10 minustes (9 minutes by then) left on it, and she pointed out a small half centimeter thick sticker that says NO PARKING FROM 3:30pm till 6PM!!!
Great, so my car was towed cuz it was rush hour. Oh well, you gotta learn your lesson somehow right?
Anyways i got back into the buildig and spend a good hour trying to find my car. The last number i call has my car. 48 bucks to get it out, which wasnt as bad as i was expecting, someone said it was near to 80 bucks. I still had some work to finsih off and was waiting for a coworker to come in so we could go to another location.
So we do all that, and i ask him to drop me off at the impound lot. This is around 12:30 at night. So they ask for my drivers license, registration and insurance, well the insurance and reg form are in the car, so they escort me out to the car to grab those 2 pieces of paper. So after frantically searching in the glove box i find the 2 documents jammed in the cars driving manual.
Now the fun starts
Reg form is fine, but the insurance paper said my insurance ran out on Sept 21! Now im thinkin, somthings not right, i paid my insurance, i remember signing the damn check and mailing it. So nothing could be done to get the car outta the impound lot... now i had to take the damn bus home, that was a 2 hour ordeal. I got to bed at 2am
Next morning i call about the insurance papers. I asked if my insurance was up to date and it was, i was good till sept 21 2001. I said i needed new updated papers cuz the ones i ahve still show sept 21 2000, they are all "no sir we mailed out your new updated papers when you paid for yoru insurance" i told them i never got htem and they say we can only print out one set per vehicle" blarg and that was their policy... so anyways in an effort to speed this post up a bit i bicker with insurance people all morning, and they are willing to reprint the insurance if i hand in my old insurance pink document.
I left it in the car
Doh...
another 2 hour bus ride to get the pink slip outta the car.
I get the pink slip
2 hour bus ride back to the insurance office
hand it in, 3 mins i have new updated insurance driver papers
2 hour bus ride back to the impound lot
I forgot the keys at home
Doh...
2 hour bus ride back home
grab the keys
2 hour bus ride back to the impound lot.
by this time its like 6pm and there was a 3 HOUR WAIT to get your car!!! the room was JAMMED packed, now i know how disgruntled postal employees feel. The impound lot was chalk full of cars and people who also got nabbed during hte parking patrol gestapo sweep of cars off the street to make rush hour less "impeding"
anyways i pleaded my story and got to my car after only a half hours wait, total bill was 59 bucks (8 dollars cuz the car was left overnight). I get the car and drive outta teh impound lot. Im still quite angry/bitter even though i have had close to 6 hours of idle time on the bus to calm down.
I decide to head back downtown to the office, so i leave the impound lot and drive down the road to make a right hand turn, there is a stop sign, i slowed briefly, saw no traffic and turned.
I get stoped by the police for not coming to a complete stop. 70 dollar ticket.
At least i had the pink slip that had my insurance up to date.
the funny thing is, i have spent up to date for the month of november nearly 40 bucks in parking and we are only on the 16th.
Its interesting to point out taht you can rent a parking spot downtown, its only 150 bucks a month, it would have been cheaper in the long run had i done that than what i got stuck with.
Ill never park downtown on the street again during rush hour.
I go downtown and during rush hour amazingly find a free parking spot infront of a parking meter that no one has grabbed. I know im gonna be awhile so i plop my 3 bucks worth of quarters in and im set for a whole hour, this is around 4:45pm.
I was even more proud of myself because this time i was able to park right in front of the building i had to go to and not have to end up parking a half dozen blocks away. This is in the HEART of downtown.
So i come back down around 5:30 to plop some more quarters in the parking meter. I walk around the corner to the parking meeter and to my astonishment there was no car!! I thought "Damn, must of been late in putting my change into the meter, damn them for towing me and not ticketing me first!", but when i examine the meter closer i noticed i still had a good 10 mins left on it!! So now im like "damn its been stolen" and start lookin distraught. There were no other cars parked on the side of the street btw. That was when a nice lady who noticed the classic various expressions on my face (shock, anger, shock, despair) politely approached me and in a grandmotherly tone said, "your cahr got towed Jack!" No my name isnt jack, but thats beside the point. I pointed out to her that my meter still had 10 minustes (9 minutes by then) left on it, and she pointed out a small half centimeter thick sticker that says NO PARKING FROM 3:30pm till 6PM!!!
Great, so my car was towed cuz it was rush hour. Oh well, you gotta learn your lesson somehow right?
Anyways i got back into the buildig and spend a good hour trying to find my car. The last number i call has my car. 48 bucks to get it out, which wasnt as bad as i was expecting, someone said it was near to 80 bucks. I still had some work to finsih off and was waiting for a coworker to come in so we could go to another location.
So we do all that, and i ask him to drop me off at the impound lot. This is around 12:30 at night. So they ask for my drivers license, registration and insurance, well the insurance and reg form are in the car, so they escort me out to the car to grab those 2 pieces of paper. So after frantically searching in the glove box i find the 2 documents jammed in the cars driving manual.
Now the fun starts
Reg form is fine, but the insurance paper said my insurance ran out on Sept 21! Now im thinkin, somthings not right, i paid my insurance, i remember signing the damn check and mailing it. So nothing could be done to get the car outta the impound lot... now i had to take the damn bus home, that was a 2 hour ordeal. I got to bed at 2am
Next morning i call about the insurance papers. I asked if my insurance was up to date and it was, i was good till sept 21 2001. I said i needed new updated papers cuz the ones i ahve still show sept 21 2000, they are all "no sir we mailed out your new updated papers when you paid for yoru insurance" i told them i never got htem and they say we can only print out one set per vehicle" blarg and that was their policy... so anyways in an effort to speed this post up a bit i bicker with insurance people all morning, and they are willing to reprint the insurance if i hand in my old insurance pink document.
I left it in the car
Doh...
another 2 hour bus ride to get the pink slip outta the car.
I get the pink slip
2 hour bus ride back to the insurance office
hand it in, 3 mins i have new updated insurance driver papers
2 hour bus ride back to the impound lot
I forgot the keys at home
Doh...
2 hour bus ride back home
grab the keys
2 hour bus ride back to the impound lot.
by this time its like 6pm and there was a 3 HOUR WAIT to get your car!!! the room was JAMMED packed, now i know how disgruntled postal employees feel. The impound lot was chalk full of cars and people who also got nabbed during hte parking patrol gestapo sweep of cars off the street to make rush hour less "impeding"
anyways i pleaded my story and got to my car after only a half hours wait, total bill was 59 bucks (8 dollars cuz the car was left overnight). I get the car and drive outta teh impound lot. Im still quite angry/bitter even though i have had close to 6 hours of idle time on the bus to calm down.
I decide to head back downtown to the office, so i leave the impound lot and drive down the road to make a right hand turn, there is a stop sign, i slowed briefly, saw no traffic and turned.
I get stoped by the police for not coming to a complete stop. 70 dollar ticket.
At least i had the pink slip that had my insurance up to date.
the funny thing is, i have spent up to date for the month of november nearly 40 bucks in parking and we are only on the 16th.
Its interesting to point out taht you can rent a parking spot downtown, its only 150 bucks a month, it would have been cheaper in the long run had i done that than what i got stuck with.
Ill never park downtown on the street again during rush hour.
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