4. The number of calls placed to
911. 6. The number calls placed to the
Department of Transportation 19. The average number of hours it takes to get a car back after it’s been
towed. 8. The number of
phone numbers you have to call before you reach someone who can
help you.
It all starts with the return to the
scene of the crime. You arrive back to your
car (or where you thought it was anyway) from your lovely
dinner, your
shopping spree, or maybe even a visit to an
old friend, and it’s gone. The empty soda
bottle you noticed in the street when parking it is still there, lying next to the curb. You check the signs. You run down 2 and 3 and 4 streets parallel to where you thought you parked it. You begin to feel as though you have
lost your mind. In vain, you frantically press the alarm button on your
keychain, holding it out in front of you as you run down the streets, hoping to hear the deactivation ‘beep beep’ from
yards away. When it becomes clear that your car is indeed GONE – you begin to sweat and you wonder who to call.
911. “I’d like to report a
stolen car…,”
If only it were that simple. Images of
chop shops,
spray paint guns, and spare parts flash through your mind as you wait for the police to appear at the intersection you have given them as a meeting point. You start to make a
mental inventory of what was in your trunk. Then you start to calculate the formula of how much this is going to jack up your
insurance. The 911 operator gives you a phone number for the D.O.T – to check and see if it was
towed. Towed? But it was
legally parked.
“Did you have any outstanding tickets?” the operator asks.
“Um..I don’t know”, you
lie.
You call the D.O.T. and get a gruff sounding woman on the other end of the phone.
“We don’t have it. Call 911 to report it stolen,” she tells you.
Again, images of lonely
hubcaps and
spray paint flood your mind.
“Are you sure?” you inquire gingerly.
“Check back with us after 11pm. They stop towing at 11 – we’ll know then if we have it.”
Your desperation must tap into the last thread of kindness in her – she gives you her name.
“Call back after 11 and ask for me. I’m Pat.” It’s 10:45 pm now.
Time to call 911 again “They are on their way”, the operator says and hangs up.
10:59pm “Hello, is Pat there?” you query in your sweetest, most distraught tone.
“This is Pat. Who is this?”
You remind her who you are and she checks again – leaving you on hold for several minutes.
“We don’t have it,” she tells you when she gets back on.
You call Pat 6 more times between then and 11:20pm.
“Is there anyone else I can call about it being towed?” you ask in one last attempt to get an answer.
“Try the Marshall,”
You scribble down the number under a
streetlight,
cell phone cradled on your neck and thank her, wondering why she didn’t supply this information before.
You dial the number for the
Marshall and get a recording telling you that the number has been changed, once again you scribble down the new number. You call the new number and get directed to another number – which you call and are given yet, another number. Finally you call that number and told that they are closed until tomorrow morning. The voice mail system mentions something about a
web site.
Calling in to 911 for the 3rd time you are told there has ‘been a delay but the
police are on their way’. You explain that you don’t know if your car has been towed or stolen – apparently this is too much information for the operator who tells you – again – ‘the police are on their way’ and then hangs up on you.
It’s now 11:45pm in a last ditch attempt to find something out you call your sister in
Jersey – you have her get on the web and after about 5 minutes and a
Google search she gets the following info on a web page after typing in your license plate number.
“A car associated with you has been towed” and she reads you yet another phone number to call for information. A sigh of relief is followed by the stressful thought ‘how much is this going to cost me?’
On your way home you
call 911, yet again, to cancel your appointment with the police at the intersection. The operator informs you that you ‘Can’t cancel
911 calls’. But you ‘won’t get in trouble for leaving’.
The next morning you get up early after
tossing and turning for most of the night. You call the number supplied by your
sister only to be directed to another number, which in turn directs you to another number. Finally after being on hold for 25 minutes you are told that you car has been towed to
Red Hook, Brooklyn by someone named Marshall Swift. You will need to pay $471.66 in cash at the Marshall’s office on lower Broadway. This includes your past due
summons of $232.41, the towing fee, the Marshall’s fee and tax. Can you believe they charge tax on towing? The next call is placed to your office to inform them that you have a ‘
stomach virus’ (no one ever questions or wants the details of a
stomach virus) and that you won’t be coming in today.
You convince your
mother (Who else will do this for you? You’re a
single girl with no friends who have cars) to take you downtown and then to
Brooklyn. Your mother parks
illegally (it must be
genetic) across the street from the Marshall’s office while you head up to the 11th floor. After 6 wrong turns down hot and smelly corridors you see it. The old time painted glass sign hangs above a doorway. Inside the doorframe you can make out a window with bars on it. Suddenly you have been transported back to the
Wild West and wonder if this scenario isn’t some modern day version of a
stockade. You arrive at the Marshall’s office with the maximum amount of cash allowed to be taken out of an
ATM in day ($500) and are informed that the car is not registered to you (it’s a
leased car). You need an authorization to pick up the car. You are informed by the office worker (sadly she isn’t wearing a
5 pointed star gold badge on a brown suede vest), that for a fee (there’s a surprise) the guy at the newsstand downstairs will notarize a form allowing you to take possession of the car. While waiting for the elevator you question the
legality of this proposition but realize that this is not the time to take on
the system.
Jack, the aptly named newsstand guy
notarizes a
photocopy of a form that you fill out authorizing yourself to take
possession of the car for $5 – a relative bargain, considering. Back upstairs you fork over the
cash and are handed a series of forms that will need to presented at the impound. Neatly
typed directions to the impound in
Red Hook accompany them.
Back in the car with your already over-critical,
middle age,
suburban mother riding
shotgun, you cross the
Brooklyn Bridge and she informs you that she’s never seen this part of
Brooklyn. Part curiosity, part mocking you, she points out various spots of interest along the way. Like you needed this. Several right turns later you are about to pull up to the impound lot when your mother asks, “Do you think they will have a
bathroom?”
“I doubt it,” you reply. "The directions say proceed to the middle
trailer.”
She sighs loudly and you know then, that she will never let you live this down. This will become the stuff
family lore is made of and for the next umpteen
Thanksgivings you will have to hear about her field trip to
Brooklyn. Lovely.
At the riverside impound you wait patiently for the other
delinquents in front of you to settle up. This is not a place to make friends and no one is in the mood for
idle chitchat. The trailer itself is behind the fence that surrounds the giant impound lot. A hole has been cut in the fence so that you can pay your impound fees ($10 a day for the first 3 days, $20 a day after that) and hand over your paperwork. The
skyline of Manhattan looms mockingly in the background. You pay your fee, and hand over your paperwork. Six rubber stamps and $22.11 later (they charge
tax on the impound fees – who knew?) they ask for your keys and instruct you to wait around the corner.
You walk to the side of the fence and stand with your fellow
convicts. A large ham or turkey (you can’t tell) still partially in its wrapper lies on the broken up sidewalk, covered in
bugs and feasting
maggots. You realize that this is
Hell.
Behind the locked fence hundred, possibly thousands, of
POW cars are lined up in neat aisles.
Jaguars,
Mercedes,
VW’s,
Subaru’s,
BMW’s, old and new - here they are all of the same social status – impounded. Headlights turn into sorrowful eyes begging for freedom, and the large impound sticker on the window (that takes weeks to get off, by the way) is worn by the vehicles like a
scarlet letter. This is not a happy place.
Finally the gate opens and out comes your car, bearing the sticker of
shame and a little dirtier than you remember, but nonetheless, a
sight for sore eyes. You inspect it for
damage (as if it would matter) and hop in. You make a
mental note to pay your tickets on time from now on – that is, until the next time this happens.
At least you will already know how to get to the
impound, and to make sure you go to the
bathroom before you leave the house.