Last night was our semester ending spring banquet, and in typical Mars Hill style, it drew out all sorts of emotion and introspection. Everything at my school is intense, including festive affairs. However, one thing we do very well is dance, and once I kicked off my shoes and started to flail in my usual free-spirited fashion, the world felt a great deal more fun.
At the end of the night, my dear friends Stacy and Jeremy and I retired to my living room to debrief the affair. We were verging on a sleepover, when our yawns made us retire around 3 am. However, as they left my apartment we were all greeted by a tow truck, its talons wrapped around their innocent Civic who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Denial is one of my favorite defense mechanisms. So when Mr. Tow Truck Driver announced the “245 release fee” it became $24.50 in my head. Fortunately he clarified. As the shock and outrage overcame me, I dashed back into the apartment, emerging with my debit card brandished high. (After all, I am the one who should have realized we had parked in my neighbor’s spot). As Stacy says, I was ready “to save the day,” before the brilliant insight occurred to me. Oh s*@!t, I don’t actually have $250 dollars in my account (my financial prosperity isn’t exactly peaking these days). So at that point, I began a pathetic entreaty to the surprisingly jolly Mr. Tow Trucker Driver, who neither retaliated towards my contempt nor gave in to my plaintive decrees. I tried many different tactics: testing out ranting and raving, humor, and outright desperation. Could you just sort of slip out of here, let the car go, and not charge us the $250? Plll-eea-sse, I begged.
I admit I am a rather proud woman with an aversion to begging, but when I decide to beg I do it wholeheartedly. Pieces of my self-respect splattered all over the sidewalk in the course of appeal.
Finally, we just made friends with Mr. Tow Truck Driver. We took pictures, we laughed, we enjoyed the view of Seattle’s skyline from the parking spot. Stacy and Jeremy came to the rescue so generously with their plastic; we decided to be thankful it wasn’t the $400 it would have been for the tow, and that we were not hunting down an impounded car in the middle of the night.
The moral of this story is that I really like my friends. To share life with people who will laugh with you at 3 a.m. when the ass of their car is in the air because you forgot to mention the details of parking legalities…well, those are precious people.
(And just a little warning to absent minded people like myself…Mr. Tow Truck Driver told us that soon the $400 current fee for towing will almost double in the city of Seattle…getting closer to $700! Outrageous.)
